Fragmentation
by Moon Step
Summary: YYHInu Kagome didn't mean to break the jewel a second time. Honestly! pairings
1. Chapter One: Sorry!

_**Fragmentation**_

_**Chapter One- Sorry!**_

* * *

Kagome bit her lip worriedly, watching the clock as it softly ticked. Every second seemed to take an eternity to pass and each sound the contraption made drove her slightly insane. Each time the second hand moved, her eyebrow twitched in time with it. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. She felt a frown tug at her lips as her hand searched for her shoe as the sudden urge to chuck something at it swelled within her. Anything to stop it from producing its maddening noise. 

Finding her discarded shoe, she leaned back in her chair to get a better aim at the clock and—

"I'm sure they're alright."

—fell backward in surprise, her chair and herself with it both falling to the floor with a pronounced thud.

Shippo jumped awake and nearly toppled off the couch at the sound. Kagome sat up slower, rubbing the back of her head. "Ow," was all she managed to say before she sent a mini-glare Sango's way, clearly telling her that it was all her fault.

Sango paid no attention to her antics, and continued, "They're probably fine, just a little late. It was, after all, a routine demon hunt."

Kagome was tempted to pout, but decided against it. Sango was right. As of late, the group had been hunting down nearby demons in _Kagome's_ era, no less, as they tried to collect information about Naraku and the jewel.

Why Kagome's era? That mess began six months previous, when Naraku had let out an all out attack on Kagome and the others. At that point, all the stray pieces had been collected and were held by either Kagome or Naraku. It had been the final fight; they had all felt it in their bones.

Except not. As the fighting got heavier and Kagome and her allies got pushed farther and farther back with no sign of victory in sight, Inuyasha had _insisted_ quite stubbornly that Kagome go back to her own era, for her own safety. She refused, flat out. And that was when he forced her to.

She disappeared down the well… but not before Naraku spotted her and (because the demon was incapable of making their lives easier) followed her through.

The next part went without saying. Disaster struck.

Through some miracle, her friends were able to follow through too, and the fight was brought into Kagome's world with barely a lapse between. It was not long, however, before they were overpowered by Naraku and the many demons that made up the hanyou and he managed to get his grimy hands on the rest of Kagome's shards. Knowing the world would truly be hell on earth if the entire jewel remained in his possession, Kagome had wasted not a second and did the first thing she could think of.

She broke the Shikon Jewel.

Again.

Now, with the jewel scattered around Tokyo, they continued their search in a very different setting that was foreign to the majority of them.

Kagome shook her head to release herself from thoughts of the past. "I wish they had brought us with them though."

After rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Shippo sat up and joined the conversation. "But it was only a little demon, so they didn't need our help," the kitsune chipped in. "Plus it's really late at night and Inuyasha wanted you to sleep."

"Some sleep I got," Kagome mumbled as she glanced at the offending clock with its constant ticking. Almost two o'clock in the morning and she had yet to sleep that night.

Then again, neither had Sango, but her demon slayer friend showed no sign of fatigue. Since they came to Kagome's time, Sango had been keeping odd hours, staying awake most nights and sleeping during the day. She had not mentioned it yet, but it made Kagome worry. Sango had isolated herself greatly in the past six months, even though the miko couldn't blame her.

Naraku had had possession of every last shard Kagome and the others had not already collected; that much had been painfully obvious when the jewel completed itself right before their eyes. Seeing the completed jewel tore Sango apart. It was undeniable proof that Kohaku was truly dead. That shard in his back had been the only thing keeping her brother alive.

Sango offered a small smile at her comment before she turned her attention back to the small radio she had turned on to chase away the awkward silence that had settled itself upon the room. After half a year in the foreign time, Sango had become somewhat accustomed to the advanced technology, though enjoyed more subtle contraptions like the radio as opposed to the loud and often annoying television set.

Kagome finally rose from her spot on the floor and made her way over to Sango, plopping down on the couch next to her, though took extra care not to disturb the neko lying beside the demon slayer. Shippo jumped into Kagome's lap almost immediately and snuggled up against her with a yawn.

Just as the silence between the three began to stretch and feel uncomfortable, the door burst open and in stumbled their two male comrades. Kagome stifled a laugh when she saw their state. Green slime covered both from head to toe, stubbornly sticking to every inch without fail.

"We're back," Miroku said, looking less than thrilled.

"And don't you look lovely," Sango said dryly. The monk didn't seem amused. In fact, he merely turned on his heels without a word and headed toward the apartment across the way.

"Have a little trouble?" Kagome asked with fake sweetness. "It looks like King Kong sneezed on you."

Inuyasha fixed her with a glare. "I didn't know that those demons _exploded_ when you killed them. A little warning would have been nice."

"What? Did you expect them to have a sign around their necks that read 'don't kill me, I exploded'?" Kagome asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Would've been nice…" he muttered under his breath as he stepped into the apartment. Kagome leapt out in front of him before he could get too far.

"Nuh-uh, go mess your own apartment up. I don't want you walking around here covered in slime," Kagome told him, indicating the apartment across the hallway.

"I need to use your bathroom. I don't doubt that the monk's in ours and I'm not stayin' like _this_ for however long it takes Miroku to get outta the shower."

"Fine," Kagome said with a sigh, "but try not to track goo everywhere. Or else you get to clean it up."

"You stink," Shippo informed the hanyou as he passed him.

Inuyasha glared at the kitsune as he trudged toward the bathroom, but said nothing. The look, however, was enough for Shippo to dodge behind Kagome, his protector. It was for reasons like those that justified Shippo's permanent spot in the girls' apartment instead of the guys.

"Find anything out?" Sango called after him, her voice suddenly void of all emotion, hiding her rage. Her voice was always so when it came to talking of Naraku.

"No," was Inuyasha's clipped response as he shut the bathroom door firmly behind him. Seconds later they heard the water running.

Kagome sighed again. They were getting nowhere in their attempt to find out where Naraku was. He had gained a great deal of followers in the short time he had been in the future, yet none gave up where his hiding spot was. The majority of them didn't even know, he just made unexpected appearances. Sounded like Naraku alright.

"Well, I'm going to get some sleep," Kagome said, "Night, Sango."

Sango only nodded absentmindedly as she leaned her head on the back of the couch, her eyes sightlessly staring at the radio. Kagome looked at her for a moment more before heading toward her bedroom with Shippo not too far behind her.

* * *

"I don't see why we need to go shopping," Inuyasha grumbled as he walked the busy sidewalks with Kagome. The wind picked up and he instinctively grabbed onto his red cap to keep it from getting swept away. That's all he needed, somebody to point and stare at his inhuman dog ears. His hair and eyes were bad enough as it was, though nothing she said would make him dye his hair or wear colored contacts. 

"That's because you need new clothes," Kagome told him, shifting the bag she was holding from one hand to the other. She had gotten him in the habit of wearing regular clothes since his fire rat attire tended to stand out, though he still usually wore it underneath the more modern clothing. In a way, it reminded her of Superman. She half expected him to run into the nearest phone booth and tear off the exterior clothing at the first sign of a demon.

"Do not," he said defiantly.

Kagome tried very hard not to roll her eyes at him. She lost. "Let's see. Besides the clothes you slimed up last night, there are the multiple ones that have blood stains that we can't get out, others that are torn beyond recognition, another with purple gunk on it that I don't even want to _know_—"

He cut her off. "Alright, alright, point taken."

"And while we're on the subject, you can start doing your own laundry."

She expected him to protest, but he surprised her by giving her a wicked look instead. "Oh fine… but remember what happened last time."

Kagome stiffened slightly as she recalled the last time she had taken Inuyasha to do the laundry. Kagome had tried to teach the half-demon boy to do it on his own and after bring him down to the room, she explained to him what had to be done and stepped out to take care of some other business. Thirty minutes later, she came back just in time to see him slash the machine with his sword, call it a demon, and effectively destroy the whole darn thing.

"…Um, no?" Kagome replied.

A brief silence passed between the two.

"I don't want to!" Inuyasha said abruptly as he crossed his arms and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, causing people to give him glares and odd looks as they walked around him.

"You're worse than Shippo," Kagome informed him as she tried to tug him along. He wouldn't budge. Kagome's temper began to rise. "You are so irritating, you know that?"

Well, if he was going to act childish, then she could too. She spun on her heels, tossing him a glare and letting out a "hmph!", as she stomped away.

Inuyasha groaned. If she went away angry, he'd pay for it later. He knew from experience.

He jogged to catch up with her, dodging through the people. When he was close enough, he grabbed onto her wrist to stop her. Kagome tried to yank her hand back, but he had a firm hold.

"Kagome…" he began.

"Let go of me, Inuyasha," Kagome said. When he didn't, she continued, "Don't make me use the s-word."

He dropped her wrist as though it had burned and Kagome smirked inwardly. Nothing worked better that threatening him with her sit command.

She continued walking, leaving him behind and hoping he didn't follow her again. He could get his own clothes for all she cared or he could just keep wearing the ruined ones he had. It's not like this was how she wanted to spend her Saturday, getting insulted by Inuyasha as he grumbled about it nonstop.

Frowning prettily, she kept her gaze on the sidewalk as she continued to walk, letting the crowd around her aimlessly guide her. So stuck was she in her thoughts that she failed to notice the cry of "Whoa, hey!" and was startled when abruptly she felt her wrist grabbed once again.

The person who had hold of her yanked her backward and into them. She growled softly, her temper rising. Kagome took her bag and with most of the strength she could muster, she swung it around and hit her captor in the side of the head.

Only it wasn't who she thought it was.

Instead of seeing Inuyasha and meeting amber eyes as she expected, her eyes met with dark brown ones. His jet black hair, gelled back to give him a tougher look, was slightly disheveled from the blow to the head she gave him.

"I'm so sorry," Kagome said quickly as she took the bag away from his face and held it back at her side. She noticed the right side of his face was entirely red. "So, so sorry."

He rubbed his face and offered a small half-smile to calm her down. "It's alright. I'm use to it."

"I'm still so sorry," she informed him. "I thought you were somebody else."

"Boyfriend?" he asked, eyebrow raised. "Or stalker? Or are we talking both?"

She bit her lip to keep from smiling. "None of the above," Kagome answered with a quick shake of the head. "How come you grabbed onto me though?"

"Sorry, do you like getting flattened by traffic?" he asked. "Because, trust me, it's not as fun as it looks."

When she gave him a blank look, he gestured behind her and, following his finger, she looked to where the cars were going by and the little red person on the sign, symbolizing not to walk. And she had just step right into the middle of it.

She smiled sheepishly. "I guess not," she responded. She noticed as he rubbed her cheek again. "I'm still really sorry."

"I'm fine, really. Haven't been hit that hard in awhile though," he told her, thinking out loud. "Caught me by surprise." _Keiko used to hit that hard_, he thought, which put a damper on his good mood.

"Girlfriend?" she inquired in the same tone as he had used, though with a slight teasing edge.

He smiled at her. "Nope." He held out his hand. "I'm Urameshi. Yusuke Urameshi."

She took the offered hand. "Nice to meet you, Yusuke."

There was a pause and he didn't let go of her hand. "Ya know, in civilized conversation, this would be the point where you tell me yours."

She grinned playfully. "And why would you want to know something like that?"

The cars began stopping as the light turned yellow, then red, and the people moved to walk across the street. Kagome followed suit, not waiting to see if Yusuke walked with her or not. Somehow, though, she already knew he would.

Sure enough, said boy jogged slightly to catch up to her. "Why don't you tell me, for curiosity's sake."

Kagome tapped her chin with one finger, as though considering it, while she tried not to release her laughter. She was having fun talking to this Yusuke guy.

"I could, but how 'bout no? I think you'll have to earn it," Kagome told him.

Yusuke sped up until he was in front of her, only he walked backward so he could see her as they walked. There was a devious twinkle in his eyes as they met her brown ones. "And how do I do that?"

She couldn't help the smile that spread across her face in response to his, but it suddenly dropped a notch when she noticed that she was about to reach the clothing store and there was a certain hanyou waiting inside for her. She wasn't surprised he had reached there before her, he probably had jumped from rooftop to rooftop (His stupidity at times never ceased to amaze her. What if someone spotted him?). She was surprised, however, that he had come at all.

"You don't," she told him, somewhat regretfully. She had enjoyed talking with him. "Because this is my stop. It was nice meeting you, Yusuke."

He seemed mildly disappointed himself. But only mildly, as though the butterfly he was just admiring had flown away. Nothing significant, but disappointing nonetheless. He stopped walking and watched as she moved away from him, hands in his pockets.

She waved goodbye to him and he nodded in return, watching her as she disappeared into the store. He stayed like that for a moment later before he shook his head, as though trying to get some thoughts out of his head. Then he walked away without looking back.

Kagome made her way inside only to look outside a few seconds later, but he was gone. Feeling slightly disappointed, she walked over to Inuyasha.

Inuyasha eyed her warily, as though she would spring on him at any moment. Then noticing the small smile on her face, he questioned her curiously. "What're you so happy about?"

She looked outside the window to where the boy had stood moments ago, feeling her smile grow. "Nothing."

* * *

AN: Just in case any of you were wondering… Kagome is 18 in this fic, meaning that this takes place a little more than two and a half years after Kagome started going to the Feudal Era and then Naraku found her time period. Six months after that gets you to when this story is taking place. 

The same time passing for Yu Yu Hakusho, meaning Yusuke's 17, Kurama's 18, etc.


	2. Chapter Two: Night Out

* * *

****

Fragmentation

Chapter Two- Night Out

* * *

Yusuke still had his hands in his pockets and a lopsided smile on his face as he made his way home. He was met with a slight surprise when he reached his apartment, a certain redheaded fox boy waiting outside his apartment for him. 

"Hey, Kurama," Yusuke greeted, "I haven't seen you in awhile. What's happening? New mission? Usually they send Botan for that."

_It's been a couple of months since the gangs been all together,_ Yusuke reflected.

"Botan's busy apparently so I came in her stead since Koenma has already told me what is going on," Kurama answered. He glanced over at the few people around looking at the two. "Though maybe we should continue this inside…"

Yusuke fished his keys out of his pocket, opening the door and letting the kitsune in. Dropping the keys on the counter, he sat in the chair across from Kurama who sat down on the couch.

"So what's this new mission?" Yusuke asked impatiently after Kurama didn't speak for a minute or so.

"Well, it's not exactly a mission… as of yet, that is. Right now we're just to be on the look out for a certain demon that's been roaming the streets. He's been gathering many followers now for quite awhile and has them killing and rampaging across the city. Apparently, this demon has been searching for something."

"What?"

"We don't know yet, but it's bound to be valuable and important," Kurama informed him.

For a second, Yusuke could see a certain devious twinkle in Kurama's eye after his statement. The sparkle of greed was most definitely from the youkai side of him, always stealing the most valuable items and whatever this object was, would certainly peak Youko Kurama's interest. 

Yusuke could practically see Kurama mentally shake his head, pushing all thoughts to the back of his mind. First, they had to worry about the mission and this new threat. Then he could see about this object….

"So anything else we know about this demon guy? Is he strong, weak, what?" Yusuke questioned.

"He's quite strong, though only a hanyou, half-demon, half-human. From what resources we have, there's a demon that suddenly appeared six months ago that fits that description, since he is a hanyou. He has long silver hair, golden eyes, and two white ears on the top of his head, not unlike Youko. We're fairly sure that's the demon we're looking for," Kurama explained.

"Any hordes of demon back-up I should know about?" Yusuke asked.

"As I said, he has a lot of followers who are loyal to him, though mostly because they fear him. But this silver haired demon seems to always have a few humans always close by him."

"Humans, but why? These super humans or what? Unless they have powers like me and Kuwabara, I don't understand why he'd have them around," the Spirit Detective said.

Kurama could only shrug. "I don't know anything about the humans, but they don't seem to have any special powers." He glanced at the clock in Yusuke's apartment. "I better be going," Kurama said, standing up, "I still have to tell Kuwabara about all this." He added in a murmur, "I don't know how I suddenly got to be the errand boy."

Yusuke raised an eyebrow. "Is that a complaint I heard from you, Kurama?" he said mockingly with a smirk, "you must be hanging around me too much. I'm starting to rub off on you."

A small smile graced the kitsune's features. "Oh, the horror," he said dryly.

Yusuke shook his head as he too smiled. "And sarcasm too. I guess that's what happens when you spend more or less four years together. Anyway, what about Hiei? You telling him too?"

"I'll wait for him to find me. No use searching endlessly for him when usually he can't be found unless he wants to be."

Yusuke nodded. "Right, I'll keep a look out for this hanyou. Considering how many demons I've fought, one hanyou will be easy to kill."

"Don't get cocky, you'd be surprised how tough they can be." He gave the Spirit Detective a half-smile. "Or did you forget that you too are part demon?" From the look on his face, Kurama could tell for awhile there he had and kitsune laughed slightly. "I'll tell you if Koenma wants us to specifically hunt this demon, otherwise, just be on the look out."

With that he left, leaving Yusuke behind to ponder. Contrary to popular belief, he did think and more often then he cared to, since they sometimes left him with headaches. Shaking his head, Yusuke turned on the TV, in need of some mindless fun.

* * *

Shippo pouted, sitting on the couch with his arms crossed and bottom lip sticking out in a childish display. "How come I can't go?" he complained. 

"Because it's for older people," Kagome explained, "you have to be a certain age to get in. Kirara's going to stay here to watch you while the rest of us go."

"Sure, I get a cat for a babysitter," the kitsune grumbled.

"Kagome, you better get ready, we're going to leave soon," Sango called from her bedroom without coming out.

Kagome frowned. "Stop hiding and come out here so I can see your outfit."

There was a pause of silence. Well, except for Shippo's ongoing grumbling, but he was ignored much to his annoyance.

"I—I don't want to," Sango called. Kagome could hear the nervousness in her voice.

"Don't make me send Kirara in there to push you out," Kagome threatened, then thinking about it, she continued with a wicked smile, "or better yet, I'll go across the hall to see if Miroku could _persuade_ you to come out…."

Sango was out of her room in mere seconds. There was no way she was getting caught in her bedroom with Miroku alone in the outfit she was wearing. It would put… ideas into his head. Not that they weren't there already, but it would make it worse. A lot worse.

Her face was crimson as she came out, avoiding everyone's gaze in the room, though it only consisted on a girl, a child kitsune, and a cat youkai. Compared to what she was use to wearing, the clothes were quite revealing. Even after coming to Kagome's time and seeing what other girls wore and even what Kagome usually wore, Sango could never bring herself to wear such things as they wore. Now she was.

Sango wore a black halter top with a glittering pink design on it that matched the pink eye shadow she wore. The neckline was low, but no where near too revealing. A simple black skirt was around her waist and reached to just below mid-thigh and she had black boots that reached to just under her knees. Really, aside from her bare arms and the parts of her legs that were bare, she was completely covered, though she was still embarrassed by the outfit, not use to wearing something like it.

Since she couldn't bring anything so large like her hiraikotsu or a sword, Kagome knew for sure that there were a few knives hidden somewhere underneath her clothes—she rarely went anywhere without them—especially since they were after a demon that night. The only question was where? Kagome couldn't detect any sight of them. 

"Don't be embarrassed, Sango, you look amazing," Kagome commented with an approving nod.

"My words exactly," came a voice from the door.

Both girls spun around, Sango's hair, which was up in a ponytail, whipping around her face as looked, only to see Miroku leaning against the door to their apartment. Her face, which she thought couldn't get a darker shade of red, proved her wrong. He stepped gracefully into the room and advanced on Sango an intense look in his eyes that made Sango very, _very_ nervous.

"I'm changing," Sango said as she spun around, trying to escape

Kagome caught her arm before she could disappear into her room. She felt bad for not letting her escape Miroku's lustful look, but she couldn't have her changing back into her other clothes or else it would take them forever to leave.

Miroku stopped in front of Sango, clasping her hands in his own and looking deep into her eyes. Sango's heart thumped wildly in her chest. What was he going to do…?

"I know I've asked you this before but… will you bear my child?"

Smack.

Her hand connected with his cheek with tremendous force, leaving a red mark on his cheek. "Can't say I didn't try," he muttered.

Shippo shook his head sadly. "Will he ever learn?"

"No," Sango and Kagome chorused.

Inuyasha appeared in their doorway, took one look at first Sango then Miroku, and could more or less guess what had gone on in the last few minutes. Shaking his head, he then turned his gaze to Kagome. "I don't want to be waiting here forever, go and get ready."

Kagome only nodded and disappeared into her bedroom to find something suitable to wear.

* * *

They arrived at their destination roughly an hour later, nearly ten o'clock at night, but that was alright since the place didn't even open until eight. They had recently found out that one of Naraku's informants would be there that night, which led them to the entrance of the club, "Ice". 

"Alright, it's crowded in there so we'll all split up and search for the demon. We'll meet out here later," Inuyasha instructed.

The rest nodded their understanding before heading inside and into the chaos. Miroku seemed to be in heaven, seeming the intimate dancing going on and he disappeared into the crowd, while Sango rolled her eyes. He was definitely not going to find anything in this crowd besides a pretty girl or two. Or five.

Inuyasha looked less pleased, not liking to be surrounded by so many people and so many scents. It made it harder to locate the demon among them. In a manner of minutes, Kagome lost sight of Inuyasha as well when he was swallowed by the crowd. The only reason she was still with Sango was because she held onto her arm.

They searched the crowded room, trying to see if they could find someone who seemed different from the others, but all Kagome could see was a dark room with too many packed bodies too close together in such a small space. The music pumped loudly, vibrating into Kagome's core. Sango turned to her friend and tried to say something, but her words were lost in the beat.

Sango abruptly slipped out of Kagome's grasp and Kagome did her best to continue following her, but when she turned around when she thought she heard someone call her name and turned back again, Sango, like the others, was gone.

"Sango?" Kagome yelled. No response.

"Sango!" she cried out again.

Someone touched her arm. "Hey, do you wanna dance?"

Kagome spun toward the voice and not recognizing the owner, shook her head and moved away. Her heart beat fast in her chest and the temperature seemed to double as she squeezed her way between people. Her breathing quickened and her mind screamed at her to escape. Everything was too close, she needed to breathe, needed air. She had to get out of there. Seeing the exit, she made her escape, pushing her way through the crowd. It had been awhile since she was out like this and she wasn't use to it. It disoriented her. 

She stumbled out of the club and began walking in the night's chilly air, the temperature changing drastically from scorching hot in the club and icy outside it. It made her wonder what had possessed the people to call the club "Ice".

Kagome enjoyed the air for only a few moments before she became cold and hugged her arms to herself. Her eyes darted across the area and they quickly found a pizza parlor nearby. Perfect. That would be an ideal place to stay and wait for the others, while still being warm.

A bell sounded as she opened the door and the warmth enveloped her. A content smile lit up her face as she made her way over to the counter. Well, if she was there she might as well get something to eat too.

That's when her eyes met with the person's working behind the counter.

"You," Kagome said in surprise to the boy she had met on the streets a week prior, though she had a half-smile on her face.

"And you," Yusuke agreed with a wide smile.

She lost the little respect she had had for him before as he looked her up and down with a heated gaze. Then again, the first time he saw her she had been wearing normal clothes. Now she wore a rather revealing shirt (in her opinion) and a short skirt and she found herself blushing at his inspection, (now she knew how Sango had felt) but she pushed it out of her mind.

"Funny how we keep running into each other like this," he said.

"Yeah, funny," she mumbled a bit nervously, hoping the blush on her face was not too noticeable. Yusuke, himself, had normal clothing with a white apron on over it. She was disappointed there was no paper hat that went with the outfit. She would've had fun making fun of it.

"So, what'll you have?"

"Um, just a soda, I think."

He handed her a soda as she forked over the money and they stayed in an awkward silence. Not able to stand it any longer, Kagome began to talk, never able to stay quiet for too long. She sat down at a table so that she was across the counter and could still talk with him.

"So, you work at a pizza place? I wouldn't expect you to—" she stopped mid-sentence and regarded the punk-looking boy with his gelled hair style up and down and changed her words, "actually, never mind, I _would_ expected you to work here."

"I feel like I should be insulted," he told her with a smile on his face as he leaned against the counter in a luxurious way, watching her take a sip of her soda.

"Feel like it? Yes. Are you? No," Kagome teased, "so how late are you working to?"

Yusuke raised an eyebrow and was about to ask if that was an invitation, but from the look on her face, he decided against it. It could lead to a comment that would end up earning him a slap like the one she had given him the other day and he decided he'd rather have her not hate him. Instead, he glanced at the clock and she followed his gaze. It was almost eleven-thirty.

"'Til three."

"All by yourself?"

"Yep," he told her with a shrug. "But I get paid extra for working late nights."

"Wow. If it was me I'd get so bored with so few customers. I would probably be talking to the wall by midnight."

"But then if someone came in there would be the whole them-calling-the-police thing and then them putting me in a mentally institution…" he joked, droning on.

"Well, you don't _tell_ them you were talking to the wall," Kagome huffed, pretending that she was offended that he didn't like her theory.

"Yeah, I'll just say it was talking to me," Yusuke said dryly.

"Then they'd _really_ put you in an institution."

She finished her soda, throwing the can away in the trash. Not feeling like leaving just yet, she sat on the edge of the table, her feet dangling off the side, kicking slowly back and forth. She enjoyed speaking with the punk-appearing boy and she figured if her friends really needed her help, Inuyasha would be able to pick up her scent and find her. That's what she told herself anyway.

"How is it over there?" Yusuke asked, jerking his head in the direction of the club. "Man, if I wasn't stuck working, I'd be over there, but I need to earn some money somehow."

"Crowded. Loud. Hot," Kagome responded, counting the list on her fingers. She gave him a half-smile. "I'm not exactly a 'club person'."

"Then why go?"

What could she say? _Yes, I was there because me and my friends—one of them being a hanyou, another a demon slayer, one with a hole in his right hand, and two mini youkai—hunt and kill demons so we can complete this jewel called the Shikon no Tama and kill this really evil demon named Naraku_. Yeah, like she could tell him all that. _He'd_ be the one putting her in an institution if she told him all that. Or just laugh in her face. Neither one sounded very pleasant and she was surprised to learn that she'd be hurt if he did either. Two brief meetings and she was already more or less attached to the guy.

"My friends dragged me there," she told him. Well, it was at least partially true.

She leaned forward from the table she was sitting on and to her dismay, she fell off it and right onto her rear on the floor with a loud thud. The chair made a loud clang next to her, falling with her graceful-self. Yeah, riight. She seemed to be doing a lot of falling lately.

Yusuke began laughing, not even trying to be polite and _hide_ his amusement, while Kagome got up, beet red, grumbling about stupid tables. When she was finally back on her feet, avoiding his eye and brushing the dirt off her skirt, he said through laughter, "hey, come over here."

Curiously but still without looking up at him, she walked over to see he had a pen in hand with a napkin on the counter with a few scribbled words on it, obviously something he wrote just now. He offered the pen to her.

"I want you to sign this," he asked with a grin.

"What is it?" she inquired, eyeing him suspiciously.

"It says 'if you injure yourself in any way because you're a total spaz, you can't sue us'," he joked.

Kagome stuck her tongue out at him but did not move back. Feeling daring, she leaned against the counter. Was she—dare she even think it—flirting with him?

Of course, what she didn't realize was by leaning forward, she was giving him a perfect view of some cleavage and he certainly wasn't about to correct this mistake. She obviously wasn't use to wearing something as showy as she was now, that's why she was unaware of the effects of it.

He too leaned forward, bringing his face close to hers but brought the pen up so that it was in between their faces. She snatched it out of his hand, and even though she knew he was joking, wrote her name on the crudely drawn black line with a smug look, since she thought he hadn't believed she'd actually do it.

He looked down. "'Kagome Higurashi'," Yusuke read with triumph and grinned, "looks like I finally found out your name."

Kagome huffed, remembering how carefully she had refused to give him her name, just because he had seemed so curious about it and she had just wanted to annoy him. Worse than that, he had tricked her into giving it! Of all the nerve….

Still, a smile she tried to hide crept onto her face.

She handed back the pen rather grudgingly and his hand brushed against hers. Both froze while Kagome blushed and their eyes met. He opened his mouth and seemed to be about to say something—

—when Miroku 'happened' to wander into the parlor, ruining it all.

Kagome jumped away from the counter, and Yusuke looked curiously from Kagome to the man that just entered.

"There you are," Miroku said, "we were looking for you."

Seeing Kagome's blushing face, he looked from Kagome to the boy behind the counter and back again, before raising an eyebrow. In his experience, he had some idea of what was going on. Trying to hide a grin, he put his hands on Kagome's shoulders with a very fake grim expression on his face. Kagome sent an annoyed glare at him.

"Thank you for taking care of my little Kagome here. She has a tendency to get herself into trouble."

Yusuke glanced at the table she fell off of for just a second. "I've noticed," he said with a small smile at Kagome, while in his head, thinking, _his little Kagome?_

It only made her blush more however, him remembering her mishap and she looked away from him. Miroku squeezed her shoulders lightly and she wondered if it was for comfort or some part of his usually lecherous plans.

"I hope she didn't cause you too much trouble, but thank you for looking after her." He spun Kagome around so she faced the door. "Now say goodbye to the nice man and we'll be on our way."

Kagome gave Miroku a suspicious glare, but decided to play along, even though she didn't really want to leave. Knowing Inuyasha would get pissed off if she stayed, she looked over her shoulder at Yusuke. "'Bye nice man," she repeated in the same part joking tone as Miroku.

Miroku slipped an arm around her waist and Kagome was about to protest—most likely by slapping him—but the look he sent her told her not to do so. Sending one last half-joking pleading look at Yusuke, they both walked out with a little ring from the bell above the door.

When they were a few feet away from the place, Miroku's hand began to slip lower which earned him a hard slap from Kagome.

"Now, what was that all about?" Kagome asked as she turned to him, arms crossed. From the way he was acting, he was making it look like the two had been involved which was so far from the truth.

"Inuyasha gets jealousy when you're even near another guy and if you stayed in there any longer, Inuyasha would've found you. Plus, you don't want to get too friendly with someone like him."

"And why not?" Kagome questioned defiantly.

Miroku shook his head. "Kagome, Kagome. Poor unknowing Kagome…" he said with a sigh, though smirking at the same time. "That man was like me, only to a lesser degree."

Kagome glared, though she was beginning to have doubts. "That guy was not a lech like you."

"I know what I sensed and he didn't seem that innocent to me."

_Even if he is, he has more tact than you, groping every female you see,_ Kagome thought.

Miroku continued. "But still, we don't need some poor human at Inuyasha's wrath especially when he's already pissed off." He smirked. "And getting to hold you was just an added bonus." She lifted a hand threateningly and wisely, the monk shut his mouth. 

_So just because I know a hanyou means I can have no social life?_ Kagome thought grumpily. Out loud, she said, "so I guess you didn't find anything?""

Nothing on Naraku, but we did find the location of a piece of the jewel," the monk told her, "the demon we were looking for let something slip about a demon and a jewel shard before Inuyasha destroyed him in one of the back rooms."

Kagome said no more until they reached the front of the club where Inuyasha stood waiting. Kagome could faintly see the twitching of his ears from under his hat that were sensitive to the banging they called music, even outside.

"Where's Sango?" Kagome asked suddenly, noticing the demon slayer no where around.

"I thought she was with you," was Inuyasha's response. 

The three exchanged the same worried glance.

* * *

Sango stepped outside the club, eyes searching for Kagome. "I could have sworn I just saw her pushing her way outside…" she mumbled to herself as her keen eye kept searching the darkness surrounding the club. 

What her eyes did catch was a flash of black at the edge of the trees on the other side of the parking lot. For a second she had thought it was Kagome, but as she walked closer she sensed an unfamiliar demonic energy around. Unable to stop herself, she began walking across the parking lot.

Once she reached the trees, she let one of her concealed knives slip into her right hand as she continued forward. They hadn't found out anything about Naraku in awhile. Maybe this demon knew something useful….

Her boots hardly made any noise against the soft grass, but if this demon was strong, there would be no sneaking up on it. It could probably sense her already. What she really needed to do was figure out where it was before it decided to attack her.

She heard something behind her and abruptly turned around, silver dagger lifted and ready to attack at any moment.

And just behind her, unknown to her, a sword was silently raised and swung down, aiming right for her neck.


	3. Chapter Three: Demon Scouting

**_

* * *

Fragmentation _**

Chapter Three- Demon Scouting

* * *

Crimson eyes watched the woman walk alone through the trees, almost silently. A silver knife was in one hand, showing her intent clearly. She was hunting something, hunting… him? He nearly sneered. Like a mere human could ever sneak up on him. Never mind that Yusuke had once brought him down with a single sly attack… but that was a long time ago and he was much stronger now. 

Taking out his sword, he smirked cruelly before jumping down, aiming his sword at her neck, ready to take her head off in a quick, neat fashion. His sword, however, only sliced through air as the woman quickly ducked and rolled across the grass before springing to her feet once again, just missing his blade. He landed in the spot she was standing in moments before.

The short demon met the woman's brown eyes with his crimson ones.

"You're quick, I'll give you that," Hiei told her, "but not as quick as me."

He made another slash at her and it took all Sango had to see the swift attack and jump back, but he managed to catch her, ripping her shirt. She looked down at the rip in her shirt and saw a thin, shallow cut appear on her stomach, a few drops of blood running down her stomach.

She glared at him as he stood a few feet away, just watching her, not even attacking again. He was… _mocking_ her because he knew he could win this fight easily. Sango didn't deny it. With only a small knife against his speed and sword, she couldn't win. If only she had a sword, then she could have held him off and defended herself, but as she was…. Still, she didn't let the negative thoughts consume her. She'd fight until her last breath—even if that happened to be in a few minutes. Hell, a few seconds if she did something stupid.

"It's almost cruel to use my sword against a mere human," he told her.

Sango ignored him and put a hand to her shirt, surveying the damage. The shirt was ripped and would soon be stained with a few drops of blood.

"This wasn't my shirt, you know," Sango told him, annoyed. Ignoring the stinging that came when she dropped the shirt, she let the material brush against her wound.

"Hn," was all Hiei said as he attacked again. She only jumped slightly to the side, however, letting him slice open her side, but not before she struck out at him. She caught the side of his arm with her knife before he was five feet away from her in the blink of an eye.

Shit. She thought that if she at least let him wound her, he'd be close enough to fatally wound as well, but he had moved aside it time so that she only caught his arm.

He must have been only toying with her before because after that, he seemed angry that she had even gotten the chance to wound him, although not without a price, which she had her wounded side that was gushing blood to show for it. Nonetheless, he began attacking quicker and with more deadly blows. The only reason Sango was able to avoid them was dodging through the trees. The demon had already knocked down quite a few trees with his sharp blade.

"Running like a coward?" the demon asked her, "You even can't face a challenge?"

His statement annoyed her more than a little, but she knew it was what he wanted. If only she had her other weapons… then she would show him.

A small gust of wind passed her as Hiei stopped in front of her, making her come to an abrupt stop. "I'd love to fight you fairly," the slayer began, "if only I had the right—"

She chucked the knife she had in her hands at him with all her strength. "—weapon!" she finished.

Hiei only jumped up into a tree and the knife embedded itself harmlessly into the tree's trunk. Sango quickly drew another knife from her boots—hey, at least the boots were coming in handy. They were ideal for keeping small knifes in as long as they were sheathed, that is. Otherwise, slicing yourself while taking them out was not so much fun.

Nonetheless, the rest of her outfit only hurt her—not literally, of course. The skirt wasn't ideal for running and was tight enough that she couldn't do any kicking if she wanted to. The boots as well were hard to run in and she found herself tripping and almost falling, but catching herself just in time. Her hair up in a ponytail was a blessing though, keeping it from getting in her eyes.

"What's a poor human like you doing out searching for demons anyway?" he asked. He wasn't even sure why he was talking to her so much. Normally he just killed his victims quickly in a manner of seconds but her… she was interesting.

"That's none of your business," she snapped at him, but said anyway, "I'm a demon slayer."

Hiei lazily swung his sword at her, causing her to drop suddenly and roll away. She remembered seeing on the television how people should drop and roll when they were on fire. There wasn't a fire, but it worked just as well in this instance.

Sango tried to get up quickly but the second she did she found Hiei's blade pointed at her neck. She froze before lying flat on the ground, grudgingly.

"And you're doing a wonderful job slaying," he mocked.

She tightened her grip on the knife in her hand and brought it down forcefully where his foot was, but he was five feet away and then back with the sword's tip pressed against her neck before she could blink, the knife planted innocently in the grass.

Sango suddenly felt naked with a strange outfit on, no weapon in her hands and no chance to reach one before he could impaled her.

He gazed down at the woman, her eyes still meeting his defiantly with… not hatred but definite anger at being defenseless and at his mercy. Her chest heaved from all the running she had to do to escape him, unsuccessfully and her face didn't show any of the pain that she must have felt due to her wound he gave her. Now, whatever he willed she'd have to do, for he held her life in his hands…

His blade slid down her neck and to her chest above her heart, also ripping the shirt further. The sudden cool metal against her warm body made her want to shiver, but she resisted the urge.

"What, are you trying to infuriate me more by ruining my shirt further? Considering you're about to kill me, I don't think my friend will want it back after this," she told him. Good, she could still talk normally. As long as she talked, she'd stay calm.

"Aren't you afraid?" he asked her, pushing the blade harder against her to emphasis his words more.

She closed her eyes for a second as he pressed the sword to her before looking him in the eyes once again. Crimson eyes, the color of blood…

"I'm not afraid to die."

Hiei lifted the blade off her, though still had it pointed threateningly, in case she decided to move. "Then what are you afraid of?"

A small bitter laugh escaped her lips. "Oh, yes, I'm going to tell the demon that's about to _kill me_ all my fears so he can exploit them. "Do you think I'm that dumb?"

"Hn," he said. _I bet it would have worked if I'd asked someone like that orange-haired idiot, _Hiei thought.

Neither one moved for awhile, Sango, because she couldn't and Hiei, well, Sango couldn't understand what he was doing.

"Aren't you going to kill me?" she asked.

Silence.

"So anxious to be dead, are you?" the fire demon responded after a second.

He lifted his sword up and Sango was about to close her eyes, then thought better of it, and watched him instead. She wasn't sure by lifting his sword if he was about to strike the final blow or… let her go?

Sango never found out, however, when she heard voices not too far away.

"Sango!" That was Kagome's voice.

They both glanced to where the voices were coming from.

Taking her chance, Sango quickly rolled away and got on one knee while the other knee was bent, foot firmly on the floor. She began reaching for yet another knife when she saw Hiei sheath his sword. She looked at him inquiringly as she fell to both knees, immediately bringing a hand across her side to hold her wound.

"You're lucky this time," he told her. "Next time, I won't go easy on you."

"Next time?" she asked, but her voice only reached the wind since the short demon was gone from sight. She smirked. "I'll be looking forward to it."

_And next time, I'll have the weapons to give you a fair fight,_ the slayer thought.

Though she couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't finished her off then and there. He certainly could have killed her and escaped before her friends reached her. Then why…?

Abruptly, Inuyasha dropped to the ground beside her with Kagome and Miroku running not too far behind.

"Sango, are you okay?" Kagome asked, going to her friend's side, "Inuyasha could smell your blood."

"Yeah, fine. My side looks worse than it really is," Sango told them. Before she could continue, she was being lifted up in someone's arms. She glared at Miroku. "Put me down, monk."

"But, Sango," he replied innocently, "you're injured."

Of course, that didn't stop him from resting his hand that went around her back on her breast as he held her bridal style. She hit him hard in the back of the head and he wisely decided to put her down, though he did slip an arm around her waist, helping her stand. Though it made her feel slightly uncomfortable and a slight blush came to her face, she'd allow it as long as his hand didn't slide any further downward.

Inuyasha handed Sango his jacket. "Put it on. You'll get people's attention if you're bleeding all over the place," the hanyou explained gruffly, "and the jacket's long enough to cover the wound."

Kagome sighed, defeated. "I just bought him that jacket…" she said while shaking her head sadly.

After Sango put the jacket on and retrieved her knife, the four quickly began their way back to their apartments.

* * *

"So a short demon, faster than any demon you've seen before, did this to you?" Kagome inquired to make sure she had heard right, pointing to her bandaged stomach. 

"That's about it," Sango told her.

"Did you find out anything about Naraku?" Inuyasha asked as he leaned against the wall.

Sango looked startled for a second, then answered, "no… no I didn't."

To tell the truth, she had honestly forgotten all about Naraku during their fight the night before. Which was weird because since Naraku had killed her brother her mind had been on nothing but him. But when she was fighting that demon… she had been so focused on fighting and her anger… she had honestly forgotten to ask. Not that she had been the position to ask anything with her at the end of his sword.

"Can we go already?" Shippo asked impatiently, nearly jumping up and down on the couch in all his eagerness.

When he did actually start bouncing, Inuyasha caught him in mid-leap. "Calm down, runt," he told the kitsune.

Kagome glanced at the clock which "somehow", or so she claimed, had lost its ability to tick in the last few days. It did still work though, it just didn't make any sound anymore.

It was almost eight o'clock at night and considering they didn't want to go out until it was completely dark outside, Kagome told them they could go in another half an hour. It was nearing the end of summer, so Kagome figured eight thirty would be dark enough for their cause. There weren't that many people—if any—in the park at night and that meant they could bring larger weapons, like Inuyasha's Tetsusaiga and Sango's Hiraikotsu as long as it was dark enough and they stuck to unused alleys to get there.

The half an hour passed by quickly and they reached the park not too long after that. The park was void of all people, especially since, by the look of the dark clouds above, it seemed that it might pour at any second.

"So how do we find this demon guy?" Shippo asked. Shippo usually used his fox illusions to make himself appear human most of the time in public, but since there was no one around, he stayed normal.

The rest looked to Kagome, who they assumed would be able to find the demon. The demon they were looking for did have a jewel fragment after all and Kagome could sense them.

Kagome took a deep breath before bracing herself for the explosion to her mind. The jewel shards had spread all over Tokyo, a much smaller space then when they had spread all over Japan in the Feudal Era and when she closed her eyes, every shard came to her mind—that was still close by that is. (In six months, quite a few had moved around). She tried to differentiate and see what direction, but seeing every shard at once left her disoriented.

Kagome fell to her knees, panting slightly. "It's no use," she told them miserably, "there's one nearby… but it's moving around so fast." She sighed, before mumbling, "sorry."

"Feh, don't beat yourself up about it," Inuyasha said gruffly though there was a certain gentleness to it that told Kagome that he didn't blame her.

"At least we know he's somewhere in this park," Sango commented, "it's not too big, we should be able to find him soon."

It did, however, prove difficult to find the demon. None of them seemed to be able to sense the demon's presence, meaning it was masking its energy from them and more then that, it probably knew they were hunting it. Yet still, the demon remained hidden. Or maybe it was hunting someone else…

"This demon has been killing humans as well, or so that other demon let slip. I don't know how true it is," Inuyasha cautioned.

"Is there any way to make this go faster?" Kagome asked, starting to get irritated with the demon's lack of appearance. "I want to get inside before it starts to pour."

Miroku had on a thoughtful expression, which was never a good sign. "Well, there is a way to speed things up…"

"How?" Shippo asked, eager to get home and sleep in a warm bed with some dessert before he slept, of course.

"If we weren't in such a large group, then maybe the demon would have attacked us already, but as we are now he won't be coming out anytime soon," the monk explained, "but if we had bait…." He looked at Kagome.

Kagome balked. "What! Oh, no, you can't mean…. Why me!" she cried indignantly.

Miroku looked at her seriously. "Inuyasha, Shippo, and Kirara are all demons so the demon wouldn't show itself to them. Sango has too many weapons and has this certain air about, that gives off power and definite sexual vibes…"

"Move on, monk," Sango growled.

Wisely, he heeded the slayer's advice. "…and I need to put up a barrier around us to mask us from the demon so he doesn't know were around, so I can't be the bait either," Miroku clarified, "plus you're young and tasty looking, I'm sure any demon would love—"

"Miroku," Inuyasha said warningly.

Kagome sighed, defeated. "Fine, but I don't have to be happy about it. And for the record, I didn't agree to this."

Inuyasha still didn't look too happy with it, but didn't say anymore. The group searched for a good place for Kagome to wait and finally they found a bench that was ideal. It was in a small clearing in the woods part of the park and on each side of the bench there was only grass until the trees and bushes began. Behind those bushes on one side, waited her friends, covered by Miroku's spell.

And so Kagome waited for the demon to make its move to try and kill her.

Oh joy.

* * *

The blue-haired deity flew swiftly through the night's air, the speed at which she was going tousling her hair. Her grip on her oar was lazy, but a grip nonetheless. Having years upon years of practice made her confident and she knew she could fly perfectly without even dreaming of falling off with her good balance, but it was better to be safe than sorry. 

Botan came to the slightly unfamiliar apartment building, dropping hesitantly to one of the windows and peering side, to make sure it was the right one. Yusuke had moved out of his apartment with his mom a few months ago and had moved into a new one, with Kuwabara as a roommate. The two argued frequently and Yusuke had threatened him often that he would kick him out, but in reality, he needed Kuwabara to pay half the rent. So he tolerated Kuwabara in _his_ apartment.

Sliding the unlocked window open, Botan flew into the room and dropped daintily to the floor next to the bed. Yusuke lay on top of the bed, passed out, with his clothes from the day still on. He had either been very exhausted or very lazy, Botan couldn't decide which. Though she couldn't help but wonder why he was passed out so early, it wasn't even ten at night yet.

Without a second thought, the grim reaper took her oar and whacked the sleeping figure with it. He toppled out of his bed with a yelp, his blankets that his feet had been tangled it cascading to the floor as well. Immediately, he jumped up and looked angrily at Botan.

"What the hell was that for!" he yelled.

"That's what you get for leaving your window open," she chided him.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to lock it next time," he mumbled as he climbed back into bed and pulled his fallen blanket on top of him and over his head.

"_Don't go back to sleep_!" Botan screeched at him and pulled the blankets off him in one quick motion. Yusuke protested and tried to grab it back, but she threw it to the other side of the room. He glared.

Yusuke ruffled his hair as he yawned widely. "Wha'd ya want?" Yusuke half-yawned.

"Oh shush," she told him, "I came to tell you that Koenma wants you and the others to start searching for the hanyou."

"You woke me up just to tell me that?" Yusuke asked, pissed.

Botan swung her oar at him again, but he smartly ducked just in time. No way he'd let her hit him twice with that weapon of hers.

"No dummy, I also came to tell you that Koenma got a report that there is a human-killing demon loose in the park that might or might not be the same demon."

Yusuke jumped to his feet. "What, and you just tell me this now!" Botan opened her mouth to answer—and from the look on her face it was going to be an angry reply—but he interrupted. "I'll go wake up Kuwabara, you go find Kurama and meet us at the park."

Botan nodded swiftly and then was out the window, flying off into the night.

* * *

"Kurama, can you sense anything?" Yusuke asked the kitsune. 

The emerald-eyed fox shook his head as he ducked under a low hanging branch. "There's something faint… but the demons around here seem to be masking their energy."

Yusuke sighed, annoyed. "This may take awhile then." He glanced upward. "I just hope it doesn't rain on us."

The continued walking through the trees, the twigs under their feet making small snapping noises, except for Kurama, who walked in complete silence. Damn sneaky fox… Yusuke was just thankful Kurama was always on their side.

Kuwabara was walking next to Yusuke when he suddenly stopped, his attention diverted. "Woah, there's a girl over there," he said, pointing.

Botan slapped his hand away. "Didn't your mother ever tell you it was rude to point?" she told him with a wry smile.

They did, however, follow his gaze to a small clearing within the woods of the park. Yusuke stared in surprise as he saw the girl from the day before—Kagome, he remembered—sitting on a bench by herself. What as she doing here? And all alone at night, at that. Didn't she know it was dangerous to be on her own? She was just asking for trouble, wasn't she?

"She's pretty," Kuwabara commented.

"Down boy," Botan said as though talking to a dog and for good measure, grabbed his ear and tugged him back as he took a step forward toward her. Botan shook her head. "What would Yukina think…?"

"We should probably get her out of the area," Kurama reasoned, "or the demon might get to her."

"You guys stay here," Yusuke told them as he walked toward her, "I'll get rid of her."

* * *

Kagome sighed silently as she waited, her feet tapping lightly on the ground as she began to grow impatiently. If something didn't happen soon, she'd fall asleep and that would lead to no good if the demon suddenly appeared. 

She leaned back further against the back of the bench, slumping slightly when she heard the snapping of twigs nearby. She turned her head sharply, her eyes searching through the dark trees when she saw a familiar figure walk out of them.

"Yu—Yusuke!" Kagome said in surprise as she stood up.

He stood with his hands in his pocket, eyeing her with a small smile. "Kagome, right?" Yusuke asked, as though he was trying to remember her name. Of course he had remembered instantly(though he still wouldn't know her name if it wasn't for that piece of paper), but she didn't need to know that.

She nodded. "What're you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," Yusuke replied, moving closer.

"I hardly know you and yet we keep having these meetings," Kagome said. She was about to smile but it wavered halfway through when the reason she was out there came back to her. "You shouldn't be out here," she told him firmly.

"Neither should you," he countered.

She could not let him stay. Sure, he looked tough with that I'm-a-punk-don't-mess-with-me thing going on and—after talking with human friends the other day— she found out he had a reputation for his ferocity (mainly after beating people up), but Kagome doubted he'd be able to handle himself against a demon. With her and the rest of the gang looking for that demon in league with Naraku that may be killing humans nearby, she could not have him sticking around.

"Be a gentleman and leave," Kagome said, sitting down on the bench, gripping it firmly so that she could not be moved without a fight.

"What kind of gentlemen would I be if I left you all alone? In the dark. At night. In the woods. Not exactly the safest thing when you're a woman," Yusuke informed her.

He had to get her out of there. If a demon came by when she was by herself…. Well, lets just say he wouldn't be seeing her again any time soon. And that demon they were looking for was said to be in the area. He could not leave her to his mercy. Plus, even though he had not known the girl too long, he did kind of like her. She was just too damn nice and cute to dislike.

"Well you shouldn't be out. It's not exactly safe for you either," she said stubbornly, crossing her arms.

Damn, she looked adorable when she was annoyed. "Fine, both of us shouldn't be out, so come with me and we'll both leave," he declared as he grabbed her by her upper arms, actually lifting her off the bench when she wouldn't get up on her own.

Kagome faltered. "Go with you? Like… on a date?"

Not exactly what he meant but…

He was not thrilled with the idea. Not that he didn't want to go out with her, it would have been an… interesting evening if he did, it was just that he wanted to stay and fight the demon. But he supposed for once he could miss a fight since he had to get the girl out of the way anyway.

"Not a date… just hanging out. Between two friends," he asked, pulling her along.

The idea of a date had startled her and she was glad that it was not, though was mildly disappointed. She was tempted to leave with him, but she had been volunteered to be bait to get the demon to come out so Inuyasha could kill it. Inuyasha would _not_ be happy if she left now with a strange boy. Actually, she was surprised he hadn't jumped out already and dragged her away. So, she still had to try and get Yusuke to leave.

He grabbed her arm, trying to get her to move faster.

"You're touching me too much to be a gentleman," Kagome told him, taking her arm from his grip.

He smirked at the comment but said, annoyed, "well maybe if you left with me, I wouldn't have to be so rough."

"Getting a little rambunctious, are we now?" she asked, eyebrow raised, "or is that too big a word for you?"

He gritted his teeth and said sharply, not really caring at the moment that he sounded like an idiot, "too big a word."

_Yusuke must be very irritated and in a hurry to actually admit his ignorance,_ Kurama thought, slightly amused, from where he was hidden by the trees.

"It means… frisky."

"Frisky?" His face broke out in a grin and he moved closer. "Frisky I can show you." Wait, no, he had to focus. He had to get here out of there so him and his teammates could search without worrying about her.

Kagome blushed, though frowned in an attempt to cover it up. He sounded as bad as Miroku, though Miroku would have probably groped her by now after such a comment so maybe not as bad, but he was not better by much. God help woman everywhere if those two ever meet up and compared notes.

Yet she was saddened by the thought at the same time. If he was like Miroku, none of this meant anything, did it? Just meaningless flirting.

"Can we just go somewhere?" he asked, tugging on her arm.

"No!" she exclaimed, then blushed at her outburst, "I—I need the fresh air. You go and have fun. Maybe I'll join you later."

_Why does she have to be so difficult!_ Yusuke thought.

"It would be boring by myself, come on," he told her.

"I don't want to!" she responded.

"You don't want to have a good time? Just come on," he said.

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

They went on back and forth for a long time, while Yusuke pulled on her arm every time he said yes and she tugged her arm back every time she responded. If someone came upon them now they would definitely get the wrong idea, call him a pervert, and then chase him away for her. That would actually be a blessing at this point.

Both abruptly froze when they heard a woman scream loudly through the seemingly quiet night air.

"Gotta go," both chorused at the same time and spun around, quickly heading off in opposite directions.

**

* * *

**

A/N: Aw, so cute. They're each trying to get the other to leave 'cause they care about one another:)


	4. Chapter Four: Her Name

One Note: I changed the timing of this story from summer to fall. Not that drastic, but thought you might want to know. I'll go back and fix the timing that was said in the last chapter later.

**_

* * *

Fragmentation_**

**_Chapter Four- Her Name_**

**_

* * *

_**Kagome rushed back toward her group and Miroku let the barrier drop, but she was surprised to find only Miroku and Shippo there. About to inquire about the rest of their group's whereabouts as they ran toward the scream, Miroku answered before she could. 

"Inuyasha felt a demon's presence before and left to go find out about it, and Sango went after him with Kirara," the monk informed her.

Well, that explained why Inuyasha didn't go rushing out of the bushes to drag her away from Yusuke. She found herself wondering just what Yusuke's reaction would be if he saw the dog demon taking her away. Would he be scared? Nah, that didn't seem his style, but would he believe his eyes or ignore the dog ears? In this day and age, people tended to ignore what they couldn't explain or make up a logical mundane explanation of something supernatural. But people were idiots.

Realization hit her. "Wait, so if the demon _had_ taken the bait, Inuyasha had already deserted me, along with Sango and Kirara. Oh, that makes me feel safe," she said dryly. When Miroku didn't respond, she looked over to him to see a thoughtful look on his face. "What's with that look?"

"That's the same guy I saw you with before," he said while breaking out into a slow, evil smile, referring to Yusuke, "I'm trying to decide if you're stalking him, or he's stalking you."

Kagome blushed pink, and she wasn't even sure why she was blushing. Okay, she kind of knew, but still.

She moved closer to Miroku as they ran, but he smartly didn't let her get too close, knowing a possible slap was on the way. "No one's stalking anyone!" she said firmly.

He laughed and they would have continued talking, or more likely friendly arguing, but seeing blood spread across the trees and grass in front of them stopped the three of them, literally. They stopped running and looked around, seeing two mangled bodies and the rest of their group in its center.

Kagome walked cautiously over to Inuyasha, watching where she stepped since she didn't want to step in the bloody grass and have it soak into her shoes. Somehow she so did not want to walk around with the squishy feeling of blood-soaked socks. Can anyone say, yuck?

The hanyou was, too, splattered in blood, but didn't seem to care or notice much. Sango was relatively clean with a few splatters of the thick liquid on her, as well as a few specks on her face. Kirara had jumped onto Sango's shoulder to keep from having to walk in the grass. The small demon seemed the most concerned with the mess. Even though a youkai, she was still a cat and cats did liked their cleanness.

"What happened?" Miroku asked.

"The demon," Inuyasha said, jerking his head toward one of the mangled bodies, "he managed to kill the guy before we got here."

That was it, just a statement, no guilt or remorse for the guy. But how could they feel remorse for them when they saw it constantly, especially Inuyasha who had been dealing with it a long time before the rest. It was different if they knew the person, but perfect strangers…. Kagome still managed to be sympathetic, but even her pity for the victims was fading with each new body she saw. She couldn't save everyone in the world, none of them could, but they'd try to save as many as they could while searching for the jewel.

"I could have sworn it was a woman who screamed," Kagome commented. Then again, in those moments of terror, some males could get just as high a range as a woman could when they screamed.

"The demon had victims," Sango told her, "we sensed the demon's presence and followed it to the baseball field and there was a woman dead when we got there, a few seconds after the scream. It ran when it saw us and found another victim here which slowed it down until we caught up to the demon again." She sighed heavily. "Too late to save the man though."

Inuyasha peered down at the demon. "The demon splattered the human's blood all over me and threw the body at me, trying to distract me," Inuyasha grumbled, then smiled (and not a nice smile) when he said the next part. "But the its blood is all over now too." He looked back to the demon's dead body. "There should be a jewel shard or two… somewhere."

The demon's body was torn apart and was a mess all over the ground. The demon must have really ticked Inuyasha off if he had been so harsh on it. Kagome's face blanched at the prospect of having to search for the shards through all the gore.

"We should check to see if there are any people around that are just wounded by the demon," Miroku said.

Sango nodded and along with Miroku and Inuyasha, began walking toward where they had first seen the demon, the same place where the woman's lifeless body lay. Sango turned back to Kagome with an inquiring look when she didn't follow.

"I'll catch up after I get the shards," Kagome told them.

"And I'll stay with Kagome," Shippo chipped in.

The rest left while Kagome moved closer to the demon's body, which held the shards somewhere inside. She grimly rolled up her sleeves, wishing she had gloves.

This was so not going to be a fun job.

**

* * *

**"We've arrived too late," Kurama said. 

The woman lay on the grass, her neck looking like it had first been bitten and then crushed with blood all over her neck, shoulders, and the bottom of her face. The blood looked a red-black color in the dark of the night, almost unreal, like it shouldn't be real blood but fake like they use in movies. The woman herself looked like she could have been sleeping if it had not been for the blood and how her body had a stillness only the dead could manage.

Yusuke cursed under his breath. Maybe if he hadn't dallied with the girl… but no, he would have had a slime chance of saving her since he wouldn't have known where to go anyway. And even then the demon had already had his grip on the girl and would have killed her if they came near, most probably.

"Incoming demon and fast," Kurama announced suddenly.

A figure was suddenly seen from above, blocking out the moon's light that fell on them for just a second before the demon landed just to the left of the woman's body. The demon—or more correct, hanyou—was crouched down with one hand to the ground, steadying him and the other resting leisurely on his knee. Silver hair flowed down his back with white dog ears atop his head. His piercing amber eyes narrowed as they watched them.

"Who the hell are you?" the hanyou asked.

"We could ask you the same question," Yusuke responded.

Two more figures, humans, a man and a woman, ran out of the trees and on to the field, stopping when they came to either side of the hanyou, eyeing the other group with curiosity and cautiousness.

The hanyou began to stand up straight and Yusuke and his friends watched his movement carefully, ready to use their weapons at any moment.

"Now it's time for justice," Kuwabara said.

The hanyou looked confused. "Justice? For wha—" he began but abruptly stopped, seeing the dead woman from the corner of his eye. "I didn't touch that woman!" he said, annoyed that they'd accuse him of her death.

"Yeah, sure," Yusuke responded.

"You're covered in human blood," Kurama reasoned. His arms were limp at his sides, but he knew that if the demon attacked he'd be able to get hold of his rose whip before he struck.

Inuyasha looked down at his shirt, splattered with human blood, his own, and the other demon's. Right now, he didn't look the part of the good guy. Still, it angered him that they would just accuse him.

"I didn't kill any humans," Inuyasha growled more fiercely. His hand went to the hilt of his sword than thought better of it. He didn't need a weapon to fend off some measly humans… though he didn't really want to kill them either. He hadn't wanted to fight them at first, for that matter, but the one with that jet-black hair had pissed him off.

Sango looked to Miroku and murmured so that no one else could hear but him (and probably Inuyasha, but he was too preoccupied with the offending humans), "this could be trouble…"

"You can keep denying it, but it won't stop being true," Yusuke told the hanyou.

Inuyasha growled once more as he suddenly sprung into an attack, but Yusuke was ready for it. He moved quickly out of the way, surprising the hanyou with his inhuman speed, and managed a hard punch in the hanyou's face, making him stagger back.

They continued to exchange blows and Kuwabara joined the fry. When Miroku began to join in as well, a whip with… thorns?… snapped at his feet. _What kind of whip has thorns?_ Miroku thought as he jumped back, avoiding the attack. The first was a warning, but now the redhead was trying to hit him. Though it didn't seem like he was trying to land a fatal blow as he kept cracking his weapon and the monk jumped back or used his staff to protect himself.

Seeing how their fight seemed unfairly matched, Sango took a step forward only to have a black blur drop down in front of her. Sango almost took a step back in surprise.

"You! What're you doing here!" Sango asked the short demon.

Hiei removed his hands from where they rested almost leisurely in his pockets and took out his sword. "We have a fight to finish."

Sango's face became serious. "And I don't have time for this, I have to help my friends." She turned to go help Miroku in his fight when Hiei was suddenly in her way only a few feet away. She frowned. Not that she really expected him to just leave because she said a few words, but it would have been nice.

"You're mine to fight," he informed her.

"Well aren't you a possessive one." She took out the sword by her side quickly and took a swipe at him. He was a few feet away in a second, just out of her reach. She would have used her hiraikotsu, but with his speed and small body, he'd be hard to hit. Her sword would have to be good enough, with a little help, that is. "Last time our fight was unevenly matched. This time I have my secret weapon." Sango looked to Kirara and pet the little youkai on her shoulder then looked back to Hiei, smiling slightly.

He sneered. "You expect me to be afraid of your little pet demon?"

Kirara jumped down, transforming as she did. Her multiple tail moved from side to side as she hissed at the fire demon. He held out his sword in a ready position, prepared to strike her down if she decided to pounce. Kirara bent her front legs, but instead of pouncing, she let Sango climb on. She then sprung up the second Sango was on and the two took off the ground.

Sango continued to fight with Hiei, using Kirara's speed to be able to attack quickly, but flew higher when he tried to counter. No matter how fast, he couldn't fly… but she found out quickly that he could jump pretty damn high.

Miroku, meanwhile, was having trouble fighting Kurama and his fast whip. The monk got hold of one of his wards, however, and threw it at Kurama. It surprised the kitsune at first, but in the end he jumped to avoid it. Still, the small paper attached onto his arm. Suddenly, the kitsune's arm with the whip went completely numb and he found he couldn't move it. He looked at the monk with surprise.

"I'm impressed that it didn't paralyze your whole body. You must be strong for it only to effect your arm," Miroku commented.

_You'd be surprise how strong,_ Kurama thought. He took no time in switching the rose whip to his other hand, though he would be slower with the less dominant arm. Again, he started to attack Miroku, but he was ready to counterattack with his staff.

He heard his name from above. "Miroku!" He looked up to see Sango tumbling downward toward the ground at an alarming rate and her landing wouldn't be pretty. Kirara was unable to get to her as Hiei kept the cat demon busy, which left it up to him. Miroku dropped his staff and caught her awkwardly, then abruptly turned with her in his arms. The whip sliced into his back as he shielded her from the attack. He cried out in pain.

"Miroku," she said with widened eyes.

"Looks like I caught a falling angel," he joked lightly as he set her down.

She heard the whish of the whip as it was pulled back once more and pushed Miroku out of the way while she jumped back. The whip struck the ground between them, where they had been standing moments ago. If that wasn't enough, Hiei abruptly appeared in front of her and attacked. Two demons against two humans, how fair was that?

She ran to her sword that had dropped to the ground only a few feet away, turning as soon as she got it to defend herself against Hiei's sword. He had made her lose her balance on Kirara and fall (whether intentionally or not, she didn't know), but even despite that, she climbed back on Kirara when she came close enough to the ground.

"Why do you keep attacking me?" she asked.

"Sadly, you seem the most worthy opponent here," he told her as his sword clashed with hers. He looked to Miroku for a second. "He's just a human with a few pathetic spells." A glance at Inuyasha. "And then there's the half-blooded dog demon, who looks too weak to hardly fight those two." Sango looked over to see Inuyasha still fighting Yusuke and Kuwabara.

"I heard that, shorty," Inuyasha called to him, annoyed.

"Hey, I get to make fun of him, not you," Kuwabara said.

Inuyasha avoided being punched by Kuwabara, while kicking Yusuke in the stomach simultaneously. Yusuke, however, grabbed onto his leg and twisted it, making Inuyasha lose balance and fall face first into the ground. It was worse than one of Kagome's sit commands. Inuyasha jumped back to his feet.

"That's _it_!" Inuyasha yelled, taking out his Tetsusaiga. "Wind—" he began.

Hearing this, Miroku's yelled to his ally before he could continue, "let's not destroy the whole park, shall we?"

He grumbled about it, but put his sword away. It was then that they heard the scream.

"_Inuyasha_!"

_Kagome,_ the hanyou thought He looked to his friends, about to say "time to go" or something along those lines, but they got the message without having to be told. Sango went close enough to the ground and held a hand out to Miroku, who used it to hoist himself onto Kirara behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist to keep himself on. The three went high into the sky, making it impossible for the others to reach the two.

"I'll meet you back home," Inuyasha called to them from the ground.

"But—" Sango started to protest. If Kagome was in trouble…

"_Go_," he commanded.

Not too happy about it, they went even higher, disappearing into the cloudy sky. Inuyasha avoided the attacks and ran into the tree area and away from the field, heading toward Kagome.

"Hey, don't run away, you coward!" Yusuke called after him, but he was already gone.

**

* * *

**"Fox Fire," Shippo yelled and toasted the already decapitated demon, but still it twitched. 

Kagome took another step back, ushering Shippo back in addition to herself. She already had the two jewel fragments it possessed, then how was it regenerating itself?

Her arms searched blindly for some sort of weapon. Her guess was it wouldn't be too happy when it was all back together again and would want to attack something. And what do you know, it had a nearly defenseless human girl and young kitsune all ready for the eating. Oh, goody.

"_Inuyasha_!" she yelled as the other arm connected to the shoulder. The arm connected to the shoulder, the hand connected to the arm, a few missing fingers to the hand. It kind of reminded her of the skeleton song, the foot bone connected to the leg bone, the leg bone connected to the—_why_ was she thinking of songs at a time like this?

Kagome grabbed a thick branch and readied it in her hands, prepared to take a swing at the demon if it stood up completely. She wasn't good at baseball, but she could use the branch like a bat and hit the demon.

Kagome heard more than saw Shippo suddenly snapped his fingers. She didn't want to look away from the demon for a second. "I remember this kind of demon, the only way to kill them is a stab through the heart," the little kitsune informed her.

"So Inuyasha managed to decapitate nearly this entire demon but never stabbed him through," Kagome muttered to herself, then in a normal voice to Shippo, "and how do you suppose we do that? All I have is a branch and somehow I don't think I'm strong enough to get that through the bone and penetrate the heart."

Sure, in the movies and television that made it look so simple to stab someone in the heart, but really you had to go through the bone, which was hard if you don't have the force it do it.

The hand that was still unattached to the body, suddenly grabbed her ankle and pulled, making Kagome fall to the ground with a yelp and dragged her across the blood-covered ground. Shippo grabbed one of her arms, trying to pull her back, but he was too little to make a difference and wound up getting pulled with her.

Luckily, that's when Inuyasha arrived on the scene. Shippo quickly told him what to do and Inuyasha used his sword to stab the demon through the heart. Kagome got up slowly to her feet, not liking the feel of cold blood all over her back. She was about to thank Inuyasha, but he didn't give her the time.

"No time to talk," he told her (which she thought kind of defeated the purpose, since he _did_ talk to say he didn't have the time to). He grabbed her swiftly in his arms, while Shippo jumped onto his back, just as the other group ran into the clearing.

Before she could get a good look at any of them, puzzled at who they were, Inuyasha was already moving swiftly, leaving them in his dust. **

* * *

**

"Damn it, we just missed him," Yusuke said, after watching the hanyou disappear.

"Who was that girl he took? Another victim?" Kuwabara asked, ready to go after them. Yusuke pulled him back. They'd never be able to keep track of the demon and they were worn already from the fight.

Kurama shook her head. "She called from him, remember? Inuyasha…"

"So that's this hanyou's name?" Yusuke asked, committing the name to memory.

"I suppose so," Kurama responded. "I didn't recognize the girl, though I hardly caught a glimpse of her, only a bit of black hair."

"Which describes millions of people in the world," Yusuke said dryly.

Kuwabara abruptly looked around the surroundings. "Was it just me, or was the twerp here too?"

"Hiei was here and then left once they ran," Kurama said with a thoughtful look on his face. He came, fought the girl, and left just like that. They could've used his speed to take down the escaping hanyou, but he hadn't seemed interested in the others at all…. Curious behavior on his part.

The rest took the time to look at the surroundings and the two bodies on the ground. Definitely not a sight for children, unless they wanted to have nightmares.

"Look at all this blood everywhere," Yusuke commented, disgusted with what the hanyou had done and gotten away with. Next time they met… let's just say the hanyou would pay.

Botan crouched down near one of the bodies, inspecting it. Yusuke had forgotten she was there for a moment, seeing as how she hadn't taken part in the fight. "This one isn't human." She looked up at the others. "It's a demon."

That stumped them. Why would he kill another demon? Unless it had something he wanted… but then why kill the human too? Just for fun?

"He did mention how he didn't kill the humans. It's possible this demon was the culprit," Kurama told them.

"Yeah, right. I don't believe that," Yusuke said.

Botan shook her head. "I'm going to take these human souls back to Spirit World and see what I can find out." She materialized her oar. "I'll be back later with information."

**

* * *

**"Ow, Sango, be gentle," Miroku said as he winced. 

"Be quiet you, big baby," she told him, "I'm only doing what you asked."

The sounds of shuffling around in the other room made Kagome wary. "If I come out of my room now will I be interrupting something I'd rather not see?" Kagome called from her bedroom.

"No," Sango said while Miroku said "Yes" at the same time. Sango hit him lightly over the head and called to Kagome, "Miroku just has wishful thinking." Kagome opened the door slowly and peeked out, as though not believing them. Sango shook her head. "Miroku has perverted your mind."

Kagome crossed her arms with a smile as she stood in the doorway. "And don't tell me he hasn't done the same for you after three years together." She moved into the room and sat down on the couch, removing her wet hair from the towel it was wrapped in. It was a hell of a job getting her clothes and herself free of all the blood.

"Just doing my job," Miroku responded with a grin. Sango slapped on another towel soaked with warm water on one of the wounds he had received from the whip. Miroku hissed in pain.

The monk sat down in the chair though backwards so that his legs straddled the back of it and his arms folded over the top, his head resting on his arms. Meanwhile Sango stood behind him, treating the wounds.

"A few of these wounds have a few thorns in them," she commented as she pulled another out. "Though I guess you're lucky he hardly broke the skin when he could have made you bleed at lot more."

"They weren't trying to kill us," Miroku said thoughtfully.

"Speak for yourself," Inuyasha retorted as he came into the girls' apartment, slamming the door behind him. In no way was he in a good mood. Who were they to accuse him of killing just because he was a demon? "Those two humans looked ready to kill me when they attacked."

"I agree with Inuyasha," Sango concurred, "that fire demon wasn't too friendly." _Although he wasn't unfriendly either. He did let me go the other night when he could have killed me…_ she thought to herself.

"I saw his speed, Sango, if he wanted you dead, he probably could have killed you easily. They were reluctant to kill us humans, but didn't care about Inuyasha."

"What's your point?" Inuyasha asked, annoyed.

"That maybe they aren't too different from us. They didn't want to kill humans, but didn't mind killing demons to protect people," Miroku concluded.

"I suppose it's possible," Sango said doubtfully. It didn't fit in the demon's case. Why would he be fighting to protect humans when he didn't seem to like them that much? Though it could be possible he wasn't even part of the group, only having come to finish what they started.

"Feh, I don't believe that at all. They were just playing with us until they decided to kill us," Inuyasha told them.

Kagome had been only listening, not having been there when the fight took place. She covered a yawn with her hand. "Maybe we should keep discussing this tomorrow," she said sleepily.

The rest nodded their agreement, worn out from the fight. The two guys left to their own apartment and Kagome gathered the sleeping Shippo in her arms, who had long since passed out on the couch. She also took the top lying near him, one of his illusion tricks that he had tried to use on Inuyasha's head earlier and put it in her coat pocket to remember to give it back later if he promised not to use it on Inuyasha again. With a goodnight to Sango, Kagome went into her room and fell asleep not too long after her head hit the pillow.

**

* * *

**Koenma looked at the four members of his team, though surprised that they were all present. He hadn't thought Hiei would come, but there he was leaning against the wall, as far away from Kuwabara as he could get. The other three sat in chairs in front of his desk, while Botan stood beside him. 

"Why did you want us all here?" Yusuke asked impatiently, "you don't call us to Spirit World much."

"I was watching your fight last night with the hanyou," Koenma began.

"Yeah, we were there too, so what?" Yusuke inquired while Koenma glared. Why did he never let him finish? He could've picked a nice, polite boy to be Spirit Detective, but, no, he gets stuck with the loud mouth, back talking boy.

Koenma's screen suddenly appeared and there was a large picture of Inuyasha on it, splattered in blood, which meant it was probably a picture from the night before.

"The hanyou looks pretty powerful and we don't know how much power he may holds, especially in that sword of his." The picture suddenly changed and instead of the hanyou, the two humans appeared. They were two separate pictures, but shared the screen so that they were next to each other. The first one was of the woman riding the cat demon, while the second was of the man fending off one of Kurama's attacks, pictures also from their fight. Hiei looked at the picture intently. Koenma continued, "these two are humans, but that's all I can tell you. There are no files that we can find on either of them, not even their names. Neither can be much older than twenty, yet we can't come up with any files." He sighed.

"Why would a demon want humans around?" Kuwabara questioned, "those two could fight, but he could have found stronger demons."

"They might be addicted to demons, would do anything for them," Kurama informed him, "some demons use humans for… sexual pleasure, among other things. The humans become addicted and completely loyal to the demon. They are mostly like slaves after that." When everyone just looked at him, he realized what it must have sounded like and said quickly, "not that I know from experience…"

A dropping pin could've been heard in the room.

"Right, I'd like to change the subject now," Yusuke commented.

"The woman… she's a demon slayer, that's all I know," Hiei mentioned. For some reason he didn't like the idea of the demon slayer being a sexual partner for the demon.

Koenma looked his way. "And how do you know that?"

"Because she told me," Hiei responded, meeting his eyes.

"So she slays other demons for her 'master', what of it?" Yusuke questioned. The subject was already annoying him.

"There's also the matter of the other demon. Botan, what about the two that were killed? What did they see?" Kurama inquired.

"Neither of them saw their attacker," Botan told them with a sigh, "they were both attacked and killed from behind. Other than that, they were both very touchy with the subject, which is expected of course. The woman broke into hysteria just talking about it."

"Which leaves us with the hanyou could be innocent…" Kurama concluded while Yusuke snorted, "or the two could have been working together and the hanyou killed the other for whatever reason. Or possibly he just killed the demon to make to it seem like the full-blood demon had been the killer."

"We have records of that demon living in the park… but he's always been peaceful before, which leaves us with Kurama's last two possibilities," Koenma said.

"And the last woman that was with the hanyou? What about her?" the kitsune asked.

"I did find a file on her. If we get her, we might be able to get to the demon," the Prince of Spirit World answered.

"What's the girl's name so we can find her and question her?" Yusuke inquired impatiently. It was early in the morning and they had fought until late last night. All he wanted to do was crawl back into his bed and sleep.

Another picture appeared, this one of the hanyou taking away the girl. Koenma zoomed in closer to what they could see of her face.

Yusuke could feel the blood draining out of his face.

"Kagome Higurashi."

**

* * *

**AN: Blah. So what'd you think? Good, bad, what the hell was I thinking when I wrote it? Review with opinions or whatnot. 


	5. Chapter Five: Third Degree

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or Yu Yu Hakusho.

**_

* * *

Fragmentation _**

Chapter Five- Third Degree

* * *

"Kagome Higurashi."

Yusuke could hear her name over and over in his head, as though someone had turned on an echo button. He remembered how she hadn't even wanted to give him her name, only having been tricked into it when he got her to sign the napkin. Was this why she hadn't wanted to give out her name? Because she had a secret to hide?

Sure, he finally meets an interesting girl and she's a demon's love slave. Kagome had seemed innocent and normal, but she proved him wrong, didn't she? Still, they could be wrong… but pictures didn't lie and that had been her on that screen.

He should have realized it earlier, really. The guy who had been with her at the pizza parlor, it was the same guy who Kurama had fought, now that he thought about it. He knew he had recognized him from somewhere, but had been too focused on the hanyou at the time to notice.

"Yusuke?" No response. "Yusuke!"

His head snapped up when he heard Botan calling him. "What?" he asked, annoyed.

"Nothing really, you've just been really quiet since we left Koenma's office," she told him.

Yusuke looked around him to see they were back in the city. His face looked bewildered. "When did we leave Spirit World?"

Botan sighed dramatically while falling back to lean against the side of a building. "There's no hope for the human race with _him_ protecting them," she said to herself.

Kuwabara peered at Yusuke closely, which irritated him. "What's wrong with him?"

"It's what normal people call being 'deep in thought'," Kurama said dryly, but still he watched Yusuke carefully. He remembered the girl in the park and knew she was the same person, that she was Kagome. Though he thought it went deeper since Yusuke seemed to know her before even that.

"You should try it sometime," Hiei told Kuwabara, referring to what Kurama had said, "it'd probably cause your head to explode. Then we could all rejoice."

Botan looked his way. "You rejoicing is a creepy thought."

"What're you even still doing here? Go chase and kill some squirrels or whatever you do in your spare time," Kuwabara said to the short demon.

"Hn." He glared at Kuwabara, seemed about to say something more, then thought better of it and was gone in an instant.

Kurama watched him depart before looking to Kuwabara. "That wasn't very smart, we could have used his help. With his speed he'd be able to find the girl quicker than us." 

Botan leaned forward, peering at Yusuke closely, her face only inches from his. "He's spaced out again. I'm worried about him."

Yusuke's eyes suddenly became focused again and he found he was staring into Botan's eyes from only inches away. "Ah!" he said, stumbling back, his hand over his heart. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack!"

"Alright, he's with us again," Botan said, then turned to Kurama, "tell them the plan."

Kurama nodded and withdrew four long thorns from his pocket, all as long as his index finger. He handed one to each of them and kept one for himself. "If you find the girl, prick her with this. It'll draw a little bit of blood, but if it does, it means that it worked. It'll knock her unconscious for awhile." He told them where Koenma said to bring her if they got a hold of her and quick directions to the place. "We'll meet at that spot in two hours and hopefully someone will have found her. From there we'll question her."

Though they didn't like the thought of kidnapping (they were the good guys. Weren't the bad guys suppose to be the kidnappers?), they nodded their comprehension, while Yusuke and Kuwabara observed the thorn in their hands. Kuwabara brought a finger up to touch the end until Yusuke caught his hand. "Are you trying to be an idiot?" Yusuke questioned incredulously. "That thing will knock you out cold." Kuwabara opened his mouth to say something, but Yusuke interrupted. "Come on." He dragged him until they reached the intersection. "You go that way, and try not to do anything stupid." _Yeah, right, remember who you're talking to Yusuke,_ he thought to himself.

Kurama watched them walk away and smiled slightly, shaking his head.

**

* * *

**

Kagome searched her pockets for money, taking out a handful of stuff out as she searched. "Lint, don't need that," she murmured and threw it on the ground as she crossed the street, "Shippo's toy, forgot to give that back," she put it back in her pocket, "crumpled up post-it… gum… and yes! Money."

Good, she needed to go to the store and pick up some more bandages and other supplies. Unfortunately, they tended to get beaten up a lot, fighting demons and whatnot constantly.

She looked up to watch where she was going, remembering what happened the other day. She smiled despite herself, remembering how the boy Yusuke had stopped her from walking into a busy street. Funny how he kept popping up wherever she was and they kept meeting.

Kagome pocketed her money as she walked on the sidewalk until she reached an alleyway that she turned into. It was a shortcut to the store she was headed to. Not that she was in any hurry, but it was cold outside and she had a sudden urge for hot chocolate when she got home. Just thinking about it made her the smallest bit warmer.

"Excuse me," she heard from behind her.

She stopped and slowly turned around to see a man behind her. He had long red hair and emerald eyes, well muscled from what she could see. He was definitely a piece of eye candy and moving closer to her until he was only a foot away.

"Yes?" she asked, her curiosity keeping her in place though she was a bit nervous. You'd be nervous too if a guy approached you in a dark alley, even if he was polite and handsome.

"Are you Kagome?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Yes, I am."

He moved even closer and she couldn't help it when she took an instinctive step backward. He could either view it as an offense or believe she was frightened on him, but either way she didn't care. Her body was screaming at her to walk, or better yet, run away now.

Kagome remained in place.

"Then I'm sorry about this," he said and indeed there was regret in his voice.

"About wh—" but she didn't finish her sentence before he suddenly took hold of her arm with one hand and pricked her with something he had in the other. With what, she didn't know, she only knew that a small spot on her arm began to bleed.

She yanked her arm back. "What was that for?" she asked angrily. Kagome took a few steps back before she began stumbling, her head spinning. Her arms were stretched out, desperate to find something to hold onto to stop her stumbling. Her vision came in and out of focus as she began to fall.

The stranger caught her before she fell completely, lifting her up into his arms as she fell into unconsciousness.

**

* * *

**

It was cold, very cold where she was. And dank too. She shivered and drew herself in tighter, bringing her bent knees closer to her chest. Something was put over her, covering her, warming her… a blanket. Kagome opened her eyes slowly, to see someone hovering over her. Even in the near dark, she recognized him.

"Yusuke?" she asked slowly, her voice sluggish. Her mind was fuzzy.

"So you finally woke up," he said to her.

She closed her eyes and pulled the blanket closer to her, wanting to go back to sleep. Had she been sleeping before? The last thing she remembered…

It suddenly came back to her and she sat up so abruptly that her head ran into Yusuke's as she did, who had still been hovering over her, watching her.

"Ow!" he said, his hands covering his nose where she had rammed into him. "I think you broke my nose!"

She stood up quickly with the blanket still wrapped around her before looking at him, a bit concerned. She then informed him, "if I broke your nose, it'd be bleeding." 

"Have you broken a lot of noses in your day?" he asked dryly as he too stood up.

She, however, ignored his question, asking some of her own. "Where did he take me? Why? And what are _you_ doinghere?" Her head was swimming with questions and she still felt lightheaded.

"Aren't we suppose to be asking the questions?" Hiei asked from the side of the room.

Everyone turned to look at the fire demon, which included the redheaded male that had knocked her out and another tall man she didn't know. She hadn't noticed anyone else in the room. Apparently, the tall one was bewildered as well.

"When did shorty get here?" Kuwabara asked, genuinely confused by the fire demon's presence.

"A few minutes ago," Kurama answered, knowing that Hiei would probably just ignore him.

Kagome watched them all warily before looking around the room. The room was bare with no furniture or any other items in it, the only way out being the door. There was a window, but it was boarded up. No help there. Somehow with the four guys in the room, she knew she wouldn't be getting out the door unless they wanted her to leave. And if she thought they would let her leave after just capturing her, she was deluding herself.

"Why did you kidnap me? Who are you people?" she asked before realization hit her. "You… you're the guys that Inuyasha and the others fought last night."

"Perceptive, isn't she?" Kurama murmured.

"What do you want with me?" Kagome asked.

"And she still continues to ask us questions," Hiei scoffed.

She turned to him, chin held up defiantly. "And what of it?" She peered at him closer, thinking, _he must be the demon Sango fought._ No one seemed to know exactly what to say or do, they didn't expect her to be so bold. "You better let me go or else Inuyasha will come and get me. And that'll be a destructive, if you try to keep me here," she informed them.

"And why would he come for you?" Yusuke asked her curiously. Was Kurama's theory right? Was she addicted to the demon?

"He's—" Kagome began then stopped. Normally, she'd just make up a lie, saying Inuyasha was her boyfriend or lover or something like that, the lie that she had been telling demons that captured her since she was fifteen, so that they wouldn't kill her on the spot. Somehow she didn't want to tell that lie to Yusuke, so she spoke the truth. "He's my friend, he'll find me."

"We handled him easily before, it wouldn't be so hard to kill him. Unless he decides to run away like a coward again," Yusuke told her.

Now that commented ticked her off. "Inuyasha is not a coward, he came because I yelled for him," she said defensively, "and you have no idea what he's capable of!" 

"What _is _he capable of?" Kurama asked softly.

If that soothing tone of his was suppose to calm her and get her to answer, it wasn't working. Kagome crossed her arms. "Oh, no, I'm not going to tell you so that you can use it against him."

"Fine, stay loyal to your 'master'," Kuwabara muttered sullenly.

Oh, now she was angry. "Master? I do _not_ have a master."

"Then why do you protect him?" the redhead inquired.

"Because he's my _friend_," Kagome responded, "are you people even listening to anything I'm saying!" She was entirely serious when she said it too. Hadn't she already gone through the friend thing? They didn't want to believe anything she said… then what was the point of questioning her?

"This is useless. She's obviously not going to tell us anything _useful_," Hiei commented.

"How about this question, why did he kill those humans?" Yusuke asked Kagome, his eyes piercing and his face serious. So much different then the flirtatious, funny Yusuke she had met on the street… and at his work… and in the park…

She shook her head furiously. "Inuyasha's not the bad guy! He didn't kill anyone!" She had another insight. "Is that why we keep meeting 'incidentally'? Have you been following me because you want to get at Inuyasha?" And the thought hurt. The only reason he had been kind was because he probably wanted to see if she let anything slip, see if she said anything about demons.

"What? No!" he responded quickly. He felt a twinge of regret when he saw her pained expression and he hadn't even done anything wrong! Well, unless you count kidnapping her, but technically that was Kurama.

Kagome wasn't sure if she should believe him. She hardly knew him in the first place… but she wanted to believe him. However, she didn't respond, only leaned against the wall, then slid down it until she was sitting on the floor.

"Look, we saw the human blood on him. Why did he kill those people? What are you after?" Yusuke asked, trying to make his voice kinder. He didn't want her to hate him. He'd enjoyed the time they spent together, even if she was a demon-obsessed human and he was her captor now. He'd had fun, the most fun he'd had since… she had left town. 

Kagome, however, only looked away, deciding not to talk anymore. She'd probably said too much already. _Inuyasha… find me,_ she thought desperately. Even after three years, she still depended on him because sometimes, she just wasn't strong enough. The love she had for him once was now a quieter love of friendship, nothing more, but still he came when she needed him. Right now, she needed him to get her out of wherever they had taken her.

…but what if that was there plan? To lure him here? Then she needed him to stay far away… and she'd have to figure out how to get out on her own.

"We're not going to get any information from her, but we could use her disappearance to our advantage, to draw them out for another fight," Kurama said, "by now they must be wondering about her whereabouts." He glanced at Kagome. He was sincerely sorry about having to kidnap her, but what was done, was done. "I think we're finished here."

Kuwabara nodded his agreement and walked from the room, followed a few moments later by Kurama and Hiei. Yusuke went too, but stopped in the doorway, looking back to her. She looked up at him, not able to help her curiosity, but he wouldn't meet her eyes.

He didn't speak right away, so she did, quietly saying, "so you're just going to leave me in here alone?" Her voice sounded unsure, but she already knew the answer.

"We'll come back and let you out later," he told her.

"After you kill Inuyasha," she finished for him, passion in her voice and in her eyes.

"Look, this probably won't mean anything to you, but…" Yusuke said awkwardly. He met her brown eyes with his finally and was almost awestruck at the fire in them.

"Yusuke, please…" she said. He'd been nice to her before and now that she thought about it, he'd been trying to get her out of the park. Maybe because he knew there was a demon loose? He wasn't such a bad guy, but he wanted to hurt her friends…

"I'm sorry, alright!" he finished quickly, nearly yelling, then closed the door forcefully, locking it, leaving Kagome alone in the dark room.

**

* * *

**

The four Spirit Detectives walked to the park, figuring since it worked for their last fight, it would be a good place for their second one too. Hiei sped by them, jumping from tree branch to tree branch, but keeping the others in sight. Was it just Yusuke or did Hiei seem even faster then usual?

Kuwabara trailed behind as Kurama came to walk beside Yusuke. "You've talked to her before this, before the park even," Kurama said, not asking, but a statement.

Yusuke kept looking ahead of him as they walked. "Yeah I did, twice before the park." He shook his head. "I never would have guessed she was involved with demons. She seemed so… normal."

"Do you think she was lying when she answered us?" the kitsune asked his teammate.

He shook his head again. "I don't know." His hands began fists. He was frustrated with it all.

Kurama didn't even glance as Hiei landed beside him, walking at human pace. "And what did you get from her thoughts, Hiei?"

"Just a few thoughts about the hanyou, but nothing that could help us. And the demon slayer's name," Hiei responded.

"The hanyou must have brainwashed her into thinking the demons are the good guys," Kuwabara mentioned from behind. "She seemed to really believe he'd come and save her. Demons aren't so loyal." Hiei didn't mind his comment, but Kurama glanced back. "Most demons," he quickly changed.

They reached the baseball field and stopped. Kuwabara was about to ask how they were going to get the other group to come, when Yusuke suddenly lifted one hand to the sky, his fingers in the shape of a gun, with the other hand bracing it. His index finger began to glow a faint blue, then suddenly a huge blast came up of his finger, flying into the dark sky.

"If they didn't see it, the hanyou must have at least felt the power," Yusuke said, nodding his head in satisfaction.

"What now?" Kuwabara asked, looking around.

"Now we wait," the redheaded kitsune replied.

**

* * *

**

_Kagome, where are you?_ Sango thought, worried. Her friend should have been home hours ago. She had left the house around noon, saying she'd be back soon. Ten hours later and no sign of her. The group had gone out looking, but found no trace of her. In the Feudal Era, Inuyasha would have been able to track her, but in the city with so many sounds and scents… no such luck.

Sango sat on the windowsill, her knees drawn up and her cheek resting on her knee as she watched the streets, as though expecting one of those people to be Kagome. Kirara slept peacefully on the couch, while Shippo was next to her, too concerned about Kagome to sleep.

Suddenly she saw a blue flash, going up into the sky, getting lost in the stars. Sango's eyes lit up, the light reflecting in her dark eyes as she watched it. That was no shooting star going across the sky.

She opened her window and put her head out it, looking to the window to the right of her. "Inuyasha," she yelled.

Sango heard another window slide open. Not too soon after, Inuyasha's head came into view. "I saw it. Suit up and let's go."

Nodding, Sango slid her window closed. She turned to Shippo. "Wake Kirara up. I think we have a lead on where to find Kagome."

That perked Shippo right up and he began nudging the cat demon as Sango went to get weapons.

**

* * *

**

"Are we almost there?" Shippo asked eagerly.

"Yes," Inuyasha replied shortly. It was the third time he'd asked it so far.

The group continued to run through the park, avoiding trees and other obstacles.

"That's what you said last time!" he complained.

Inuyasha tried to calm himself down, willing himself not to strangle the little demon because Kagome would be annoyed with him if he did. But maybe if he got her another little kitsune (a less annoying one) she wouldn't be upset for too long… "That's because you asked two minutes ago," he replied through gritted teeth. See? No act of violence. He was getting better.

"Well, two minutes is a long—" Shippo began but abruptly stopped in speech and in movement. He looked around him then started heading off in a different direction.

"Where are you going, Shippo?" Miroku called after him.

He was getting further and further away, not even stopping as he replied. "To find Kagome!"

"That's what we're doing, you little twerp!" Inuyasha yelled, but the kitsune kept moving.

Sango turned to the others. "I'll follow him to make sure he doesn't get into trouble. I'll meet up with you later." Then Sango was running after him with Kirara not too far behind. Soon both had disappeared into the trees shrouded in darkness.

"If we're meeting our four friends for last night, this will hardly be a fair fight for the two of us," Miroku commented.

"Won't know that until we get there," Inuyasha responded as he took off.

Miroku sighed and followed. Not too much later, they had reached the field they had fought at the previous night. Lo and behold, there stood the three in the center of the field. It took them a few seconds, but they spotted the fourth on a tree branch nearby.

Inuyasha wasted no time in withdrawing his sword as he ran forward, swinging it at Yusuke. Yusuke jumped back just in time.

"Where's Kagome?" Inuyasha growled before attacking again.

"Couldn't we have at least _talked_ first?" Miroku asked mostly to himself since there was no one there to listen anyway.

It seemed that apparently they could not, because Inuyasha and Yusuke were already violently going at it. Obviously, Yusuke had not told Inuyasha where to find her, only spitted insults out at him, which made him angrier and attack with his sword, but Yusuke was quick enough to evade the attacks.

Kurama had taken out his rose whip, but was instead attacking Inuyasha and not Miroku, which was fine with the monk since he didn't want anymore wounds from the weapon. Miroku turned his attention to Kuwabara, using his staff to stop an attack on Inuyasha from the human. The tall one had a new weapon, a weird sort of sword that didn't look solid, but felt solid against his staff.

Hiei watched the fight for a few minutes, not moving from his spot. They were doing fine without him, they didn't need him to defeat the hanyou and his servant. But why hadn't the third showed? Too scared to show up? He nearly sneered, but without her he had no desire to fight the other pathetic two and just watching the fight bored him. He wanted it to end quickly.

He jumped easily down from the tree and walked at a human pace to the human fighting the baka. "You're taking too long," Hiei told Kuwabara. He took out his sword. "I'll finish this quickly."

Kuwabara tried to argue the insult to his fighting, never mind the fact that Koenma had mentioned he didn't want the humans killed, but Hiei didn't give him a chance. He wasn't planning killing him anyway, just knocking him unconscious after cutting him up a bit. He couldn't be faulted for that.

Miroku held up his staff defensively but knew it would be of virtually no use against Hiei, having already seen his speed. Hiei jumped to attack, sword flashing, when he heard a voice.

"Hiraikotsu!"

The large weapon came spinning quickly toward him and he leapt away from it and Miroku too, as it spun between them. Then the enlarged boomerang-like weapon turned, coming back the way it came and he followed it with his eyes back to its owner. There, riding toward them, was the demon slayer on the neko youkai. She jumped off the demon to catch the weapon, going down on one knee to steady herself as she caught it.

With the weapon over her back and her face to the ground, she told him, "stay away from him." Sango stood up, lifting her head up to meet his eyes. "You're mine to fight, remember?" she said, repeating his words from the night before with a smile.

There was the smallest bit of a smirk on his lips, but it was more wicked than nice. "So you showed up after all. I thought you might be too spineless to come back, woman," Hiei said as he sheathed his sword, his hands going to his pockets. He knew her name now, but deliberately avoided using it.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world," she said wryly, the smile still playing across her lips as she moved warily closer. "What happened with Shippo?" Miroku called to her, before he began to fight Kuwabara again as the other boy attacked him. 

She shook her head. "Lost sight of him and then I heard this fight going on. I thought I'd be better use here." Miroku could say no more after that, putting all his attention into the fight.

Sango turned her attention back to Hiei, who stood there, watching her. Waiting for her to make the first move, was he? Then how should she go about this? The others continued to fight around them, but neither the demon nor the demon slayer moved nor paid attention to anything else. Testing him, she took a step to the left. He took a step to his. She quickly found she didn't like this game. She liked it better when he just attacked and maybe that's why he was doing so. He wanted her to be uncomfortable and annoyed.

Sango turned to look behind her. "Kirara," she called.

Hiei's smile turned even more devious, if that was possible. "Don't count on it."

Sango turned back toward him curiously, then saw him take something out of a pocket. Was that… was that catnip?

Crap.

He tossed it the youkai's way and she caught it mid-leap, changing back to her smaller form as she did. Once her feet hit the ground, Kirara went crazy, playing with it as it gave off the intoxicating smell.

"That was hardly fair," Sango said, crossing her arms.

"If you expect your opponent to always be fair, you haven't fought many demons," Hiei informed her. She opened her mouth to argue, but he continued, "don't whine and complain. It makes you seem weak." He pushed her on further. "Weaker than you already are, that is."

They walked closer to each other, partially unintentionally but cautiously all the same. She never withdrew her sword, so neither did he. "Giving me pointers now?" she questioned dryly. They were a foot away.

Her body was completely relaxed, then without any warning she tried to punch him. He caught her fist way before it could hit his face. "Not fast enough." He threw her fist away from him, making her stumble back. Sango managed to keep her footing and tried to attack once more, throwing as many punches as fast as she could. He either blocked or caught all of them. Every time he pushed her back, she came back, even fast, adrenaline running through her veins. She hardly ever used fists to fight, not needing to, but she tried her best now.

Sango stumbled to the grass when he pushed her back yet again. The first few beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. "You call that fast? That's hardly better than the baka," Hiei insulted.

"What do you want from me?" She asked angrily, pushing herself up on her arms, "you're a demon, I'm not as quick as you. We both already know this."

"Some humans can be quick, you just don't have enough power or skill," he mocked her.

No one, _no_ _one_ insulted her training. She learned from her father, one of the best, of his time at least.

She leapt to her feet and attacked again. She shook it up, making sure her punches had no pattern and that they were at random, but he could still catch all of them. Then out of the blue tried to kick him in the side. He managed to catch it, but only just. Her foot was an inch away from hitting him.

"Better," he told her. He twisted her foot in his hand, making her lose her balance and fall with a cry. She just managed to throw her arms up so that her she didn't hit her head hard on the ground.

"Why are you just playing with me?" Sango snapped. She was getting aggravated that she couldn't even get one blow in. "You could have killed me the second I arrived."

"You're holding back," Hiei told her, "I won't kill you until you give me your all. But I can put you through a lot of pain until then." He actually wouldn't kill her at all. He couldn't without getting penalized for it now that Koenma knew of her, so Hiei would probably just knock her out and leave her to Koenma to deal with, even if he didn't like the idea. But she didn't know any of that.

Sango got to her feet slowly, gritting her teeth at the pain. She wasn't sure, but she thought he might have twisted her ankle. Whether intentionally, she didn't know, but it hurt a lot. Quickly she put it out of her mind, which made the pain recede a little.

Finally, she took out her sword. "Then let's go."

**

* * *

**

Kagome spun Shippo's toy, watching it spin so fast her eyes couldn't follow the rotation. Not the most fun thing to do, but it helped pass the time while she was by herself in the dark room.

She couldn't help but worry about the others. She didn't think they'd kill Sango and Miroku, especially since they hadn't killed her… but Inuyasha was a different story. She didn't know what they'd do if they had her friends in their clutches either. And what about Shippo? He was a demon… would they kill him too? She shivered at the thought.

They didn't seem like bad people though, Yusuke and the rest. So nothing was certain. And her friends were strong. Who's to say they wouldn't win?

Kagome grabbed the top mid-spin and put it back in her coat pocket. She sighed, leaning heavily against the wall. This whole incident was making her nervous, not knowing what was happening to her friends while she was trapped… She'd tried to open the door and the boarded up window. Neither would budge.

"Kagome?" A muffled voice called from outside. "Kagomeeee?"

It took her a moment to place the voice, but she got it. "Shippo!" she yelled, standing up abruptly and going to the window where the voice had been near. "Shippo, in here!" She banged on the boards.

There was a pause before he responded. "Move away from the window," he instructed her.

She did as asked, moments later the call "Fox Fire" being heard. Slowly the wood became burnt, the wood weakening, turning black, and a few holes appearing as the fire consumed it. The fire disappeared after awhile, but Kagome hit her arm against the board, knocking it away from the window.

Shippo jumped in through the hole seconds later and into Kagome's arms. "Shippo!" Kagome said, hugging him tight, "how'd you find me?"

The kitsune reached down into her pocket, taking out his toy. "This top is one of my illusion tricks and has some of my powers connected to it. When you started spinning it, I could trace it back here."

Kagome squeezed him tighter. "Remember me to give you all the candy and sweets you want when we get home."

His face brightened even more. "I'll hold you to that," Shippo warned her, then unwrapped the piece of gum he also snatched from her pocket, "and I'll be taking this for advance payment." He popped the stick of gum in his mouth and Kagome laughed.

The seriousness of the situation, however, came back to her and her face became somber. "I don't think either of us are the bad guy here, it's just a misunderstanding," she said, more to herself than Shippo. She looked down at the kitsune in her arms. "Come on, we have to get there before they tear each other apart."

He nodded in agreement and Kagome began her crawl out of window. Luckily it wasn't that far of a drop to the ground. Then she took off running, Shippo giving her directions on how to get back to the park.

She only hoped she wouldn't be too late.

**

* * *

**

Thank you for all the wonderful reviews! Besides loving the actually writing part, I love to see people's reactions to all the crazy stuff that happens in the chapter(s) and they really brighten up my day:o)

Next Chapter: **Chapter Six: Old Friend **(possible change in title)


	6. Chapter Six: Old Friend

**A/N:** Small note: I haven't seen all of Yu Yu Hakusho, only what I can watch on television and even then, I've missed a few and it's been awhile since I've seen some. Therefore, some of my facts might be off. Same goes for Inuyasha. Also, if you hadn't noticed already, I'm ignoring all facts concerning the Makai Tournament and after it, so therefore assume it didn't happen.

Disclaimer: Woah, woah, woah. I realized that I haven't done one of these for this fic yet. But quite obviously: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or Inuyasha!

* * *

**_Fragmentation_**

**_Chapter Six- Old Friend_**

**_

* * *

_**

Kagome let out a small yelp as her hair snagged on a tree branch. She began fumbling with it, her heart beating quickly in her chest with nervousness and dread running through her. What was happening? Were any of her friends hurt? Had Yusuke and his friends harmed them or the other way around? She bit her lip, not liking the sound of it either way, as her fingers tried more frantically to free herself.

In the end Shippo had to jump onto her shoulder to untangle her, then finally a few seconds that seemed like minutes passed and she was free. Then, not seconds after that, she was running through the trees once more, taking off so fast that Shippo almost flew off her shoulder, his sudden grip on her neck the only thing keeping him on.

_I just hope I'm not too late,_ Kagome thought worriedly.

* * *

Miroku jumped back as Kuwabara attacked, swinging his spirit sword around somewhat clumsily. He attacked again but Miroku stepped to the side to avoid it before using his staff to take Kuwabara's feet out from under him. Falling with a loud "oomph", he tried to get up but Miroku stopped him quickly by using one of his wards to paralyze him.

Hiei glanced over at him, muttering, "fool," while Miroku looked to Sango.

Sango nodded her head toward the half-demon currently engaged in combat with the two other men. "Go, help Inuyasha. I can handle myself here."

Miroku hesitated before finally giving her a nod and heading toward Inuyasha. She watched him leave, failing to notice Hiei's sudden attack until it was too late. He sliced at her stomach, ripping the fabric of her shirt as a warning since he could do a lot worse.

"Pay attention," he snapped at her.

She looked at her shirt, then back up at him. "What is with you and ruining my clothes?"

"Hn." He leapt forward, sword flashing, but she brought her sword up and blocked. "You're lucky that's all I did."

She took a step to the left, as did he and they began circling each other, searching for an opening to attack. He was limiting himself, she could tell, otherwise she'd be dead with his speed against her. Still he seemed to attack with everything he had strength and skill-wise, just not use his advantage over her. It annoyed her a bit, but it did give her a fair shot and she'd use that.

"I'd hate to have to kill you," Sango admitted with a sudden attack, "I'm actually beginning to like you, but you're trying to attacking my friends so…"

Hiei blocked her sword easily. "Hn, can't say the same about you," he told her coldly, "and friends are for the weak. They get in the way."

"Friends," she corrected as they're blades locked, "give you strength." She pushed him back, and he jumped backward, surprised by her sudden burst of strength. "I fight for my friends and they make me stronger," she told him, "what do you fight for?"

He met her eyes. "To live." Fighting… fighting was the only thing that had meaning to him. The only thing that made his life worth living. He had… nothing else.

Sango's eyes held a question, but she didn't ask him, knowing he wouldn't tell her. They were enemies after all. Out loud, she asked, "and not for your friends over there?" She nodded her head to where her friends were fighting his allies.

He didn't even glance at them, keeping his eyes on Sango. "I told you, I don't have friends."

"So if I attacked that…" she quickly scanned over the people with her eyes, "…that redhead over there, you would do nothing to stop me?"

"He can take care of himself and could cut you down easily."

Sango watched him closely. He didn't seem to be liking her questioning much, his annoyance clear on his face. "But what if he was nearly unconscious on the ground, wounded and unable to fight. Would you help him then?"

"Hn," he said before attacking her quickly, multiple times.

Sango threw up her Hiraikotsu to block the attacks, her feet sliding back with the force of each hit. They passed Kirara as they slid back, still content playing with her catnip, making Sango nearly roll her eyes.

He stopped the attacks and jumped back, his sword held defensively, expecting her to rush in and attack. Instead, she held her boomerang-like weapon up before throwing it through the air. Hiei watched as it went wide.

"Is that the best you can do?" he mocked, taking a step forward.

Sango smiled slowly, and it was then that he heard a whoosh through the air before her weapon hit the fire demon from behind on its return path. Hiei grunted as he fell to the ground, her weapon falling on top of him.

She walked over to him cautiously to retrieve her weapon, not knowing how long he'd stay down, but she didn't think it'd be long. As she took it, she spoke.

"The good thing about my weapon? It always come back."

* * *

"He's really gotta learn to look out for those returning attacks," Yusuke muttered as he saw Hiei get hit. He had beaten Hiei the first time they met like that.

He shifted his attention back to the hanyou he was fighting. Kurama was keeping the man busy, leaving him to deal with the half-demon on his own. Not that he minded; he'd rather have it this way, a nice one on one fight. Minus the nice part.

Yusuke dodged when the sword was swung at him, making the blade strike the ground instead, leaving a large indent. Inuyasha pulled out the sword once more, similar splits in the ground all around the two.

"I'm going to ask you one last time before I lose my patience and just decide to kill you," Inuyasha growled, swinging his sword, "where's Kagome?"

"She's safe and away from you," Yusuke responded.

He had had about enough. Yusuke pointed his index finger at the half-demon with his thumb upward in a gun-like position. Inuyasha sneered at him, not knowing the damage the Spirit Detective could inflict with just his index finger. However, his ears flattened on his head when he felt the power begin to rise within his enemy.

"No, don't!" they heard someone yell.

Kagome arrived on the scene just as Yusuke's finger began glowing a light blue color. Feeling the power in the air rising, she yelled and ran to Inuyasha. She wasn't sure what she was thinking at the time when she ran in front of him—maybe that she would shield him, she didn't know—but Yusuke had already fired his attack, unable to stop it as Kagome ran.

She reached Inuyasha just as the attack hit, the ground splitting around them, crumbling at the force of it. Then, there was only clouds of debris and dirt, blocking the view.

It cleared slowly, drifting away, and all Yusuke could see at first was the destroyed ground. Yusuke cursed silently, his heart suddenly beating faster than usually. If he'd hurt her…

But the smoke finally disappeared entirely and standing in the center of all the ruin was Kagome, leaning back against the hanyou with a small kitsune on her shoulder, the three standing on the only piece of ground that was still intact around them. Around them was a swirling pink barrier of power that had protected them, dissipating Yusuke's attack. And the pink light was coming from… Kagome.

"She… she shielded against my attack," Yusuke said with wide, disbelieving eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had done that, even demons. Then again, the demons he had been fighting lately weren't the strongest of those he'd fought in his lifetime, but still… how could she have that kind of power?

The rest of the fighters had stopped to watch as Yusuke attacked Inuyasha and Kagome with a strong spirit blast, Yusuke's allies more or less shocked by the human girl's power. During their confusion, Inuyasha took the time to move Kagome behind him as the barrier around them disappeared. He held out his sword, ready to attack as it gathered the energy, the blade covered in it.

Hiei, who had long since gotten back up, snapped, "you fools, take the sword from the hanyou. That's his power."

In a blink of an eye he was gone from sight and reappeared in front of Inuyasha. His hand reached for the hilt and he would have been able to take it from him with his fluid movements if the sword had not repelled his touch. He was flung backwards, falling to his back on the ground, the energy from the Tetsusaiga assaulting him.

Inuyasha smirked and jumped forward, intending on attacking the momentarily hurt demon.

Sango took a step forward, crying out, "No!" before she could stop herself.

Without hesitation, Kagome yelled, "sit boy!"

Inuyasha crashed to the ground mid-leap, making a nice Inuyasha-shaped indentation in the ground. Yusuke took a step toward Inuyasha, but Kagome moved in front of him, her arms spread wide to block the Spirit Detective. "I won't let you hurt him," she informed him. And slightly, very slightly, her body began humming with the pink colored power unknown to her, but Yusuke could feel it.

"Yeah!" Shippo chipped in, encouragingly.

The wind howling was the only thing heard as Kagome and Yusuke locked eyes, neither moving. Neither really wanted to hurt the other, but they both had jobs to do as well. And if those jobs put them against each other…

Botan arrived on her oar, hopping, to the ground before going to Yusuke's side. "Koenma wants to see you," the blue-haired deity declared, "he wants you to pull out."

Yusuke looked over to the paralyzed Kuwabara and then to Hiei, who was just getting up after the sword had drained his energy. He looked like he might have liked to attack the hanyou again, but seemed think better of it. Hiei looked to Yusuke and seeing the message in it, let out an annoyed "hn" before disappearing. He didn't like the fact that he had been bested. Revenge later on would be in order.

Yusuke looked back to meet Kagome's eyes and knew she'd let them go. She'd make sure her friends wouldn't stop them. Why, he didn't know. What surprised him more was he wanted to go. He didn't want to fight her, not yet at least. Besides the odds were against them and he wasn't sure what other surprises the other team had up their sleeves.

"We'll settle this later," he informed her.

Kagome paused before nodding.

Then Yusuke and Kurama gathered their teammate and left.

* * *

"Looks like we're confined to the room for now," Kagome declared.

She flopped down on the couch in their apartment, tired from a very long and somewhat confusing night. When she heard something tumble and fall she glanced over at Shippo in the kitchen, who was more or less inside the cupboard, eating what should have been a year's supply of candy and junk food all in one sitting. She laughed, seeing the chocolate mess around his mouth.

"What?" he said, "You said I could have all the candy I wanted! I did save you after all." He puffed out his chest proudly, which only made Kagome laugh more.

"You're going to get fat, eating all of that junk," Sango informed him as she passed by him before plopping down next to Kagome. "And then we'll have to roll you around the house." She then looked to the miko next to her. "What's this about us being confined?" she inquired as Kirara jumped up into Sango's lap. She still had the catnip with her since she refused to leave it behind, carrying it around with her in her mouth.

"Inuyasha doesn't want us leaving the apartment unless we're all together. He doesn't trust that other team not to sneak up on us. Not that I blame him since that's how they captured me," Kagome confessed.

She remembered Inuyasha's grumbling as they had left the field, saying things like, "you should've let me finish them off when they were weak" and such. But she wanted to talk with them, not fight. If they wanted to destroy Inuyasha because they thought he was evil… then they were probably on the same side. Probably.

She couldn't just talk to them when Inuyasha was around though, he wouldn't listen. He'd rather fight then reason with the "enemy" and she already knew she wouldn't be able to convince him they might not be the enemy. Their actions toward her and her friends weren't exactly the best evidence either.

If she could just be alone with someone that would listen. Yusuke or maybe the red-haired one...

"Fine by me," Sango said, but her words weren't entirely convincing. She shifted on the couch and winced at the pain it caused.

Noticing her grimace, Kagome inquired, worriedly, "what's wrong?" Ignoring Sango's protest of "it's nothing," she got a look at Sango's ankle before she could hide it from view. "What happened?" she asked, alarmed, seeing her puffy, red ankle.

As Kagome rushed into the kitchen to get ice, Sango explained dryly, "my new friend, the fast little demon twisted it. It doesn't hurt too bad, I was walking fine before."

"No you weren't," Kagome accused from the kitchen, "I thought I saw you limping." She hurried back into the room and had Sango put her leg up on the table as she put the ice on the swelling. Then she smiled. "If you'd told Miroku I'm sure you could have gotten a free piggyback ride back to the apartment."

Sango leaned back on the couch, closing her eyes. "You know what? I'm too tired to even make a decent scolding response to that remark."

Kagome shook her head, still smiling as she stood up. "Alright, I've had a long night. I think I'll just turn in." And maybe later she'd sneak out to try and talk to someone from the other group…

Sango nodded and watched Kagome leave, taking a stuffed little kitsune with her as he protested the whole way, still wanting more snacks. The bedroom door closed quietly and Sango was left in silence. She glanced down at the sleeping cat demon on her lap, curled around her prize, worn completely out by all the playing she did that night.

_Nice to know that when dangers afoot, Kirara will choose cat nip over helping me,_ Sango thought wryly. Though she knew if she had been in a real jam, the cat demon would have stepped in and helped. It was as though she could sense the demon Sango fought hadn't been a real threat to her. And why was that?

Sango slumped even more against the couch. She was tired and even tried to sleep, but was restless. Her body itched to fight something, her body still running on adrenaline from the fight that night, more coursing through her at just the thought.

Finally not able to take it any longer, she moved the sleeping Kirara off her, the demon never so much as twitching as she was relocated to the couch, meaning she must have been even more exhausted then Sango thought. Standing up, she was immediately assaulted with jabs of pain from her ankle, but forced herself to put it at the back of her mind. She grabbed her sword and took a coat to conceal it, then was off.

She was certain there was some demon out there that needed killing. There always were since Naraku started making mischief in the present. Only Naraku himself had been mysteriously absent for awhile…

Sango headed to wherever her feet wanted to take her and, to no surprise to her, she ended up in the same park she had been in two or three hours before. Half of her wanted to meet up with the demon from before; the other half was just looking for a fight to relieve her of the feeling of anxiousness that surrounded her.

The demon she met, however, wasn't about to relieve her of anything.

The demon dropped in front of her and red eyes stared at her, but not the red eyes she'd wanted to see.

"Sango, is it? So nice to see you again," the demon said with a smirk as she opened her fan.

Her eyes widened. "K-Kagura!"

* * *

"'It's time to play… Wheel of Misfortune!" the announcer declared as the audience cheered.

"Game shows scare me sometimes," Kuwabara mumbled as he passed by while Yusuke switched the channel. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the person's view, Kuwabara was talking and walking around again. None of the others had been able to remove the ward the man had placed on him except Botan, being a deity, so he was no longer paralyzed.

_Remind me again why that's a good thing?_ Yusuke thought.

Yusuke glared at him as he momentarily blocking his view of the television before sneering at his comment. "All the things we've seen and game shows scare you? That's sad," he mocked, "we'll have to make sure the demons don't find out about your weakness. Or Hiei."

Kuwabara contemplated whether or not to throw the pocky in his hand at Yusuke, but in the end decided he'd rather eat it. Taking a bite out of it he tried to think of a witty comeback, though ended up just saying the traditional, "shut up, Urameshi." Searching for more, he said, "What I don't get is if those humans follow the demon blindly, praise him or whatever they do, how come the girl could control the hanyou? That doesn't seem right."

Yusuke changed the channel again, though his mind he was remembering how the half-demon had fallen into the ground by her command. He replied, "Kurama did say it was possible the girl might be the one pulling the strings."

An image of the girl Kagome pulling the strings on a little puppet of the hanyou while laughing evilly came to mind, but Kuwabara shook it off. "We've seen weirder things," he said, shaking his head.

Kuwabara disappeared into his room and not five minutes later, Kuwabara was fast asleep, Yusuke could tell by the loud snoring. The rest of the group had dissipated that night, each going their separate ways, though beforehand Kurama had caught Botan in her lie, knowing Koenma hadn't actually called for them.

"Well, I had to get you away from them and that's the only way you'd leave, Yusuke. I wasn't even sure if you'd leave if I said that," Botan had said, "we still don't know enough about those people, creatures, or whatever they are to go up against them. You underestimated them tonight."

Yusuke shut off the television and threw the remote to the ground, almost violently. "I underestimated _her_," he corrected in a mutter. How had she escaped anyway? Last he saw her, she was still trapped in that room they'd put her in. That girl was crafty and powerful. And to think, a day ago he thought she was normal.

She hadn't seemed like the type that would have minions that were hell-bent on killing humans and possible trying to destroy or take over the world (their pick), but, hey, who did these days? Alright, bad question, there were plenty of humans who probably might want to, he'd met one or two (or seven), but Kagome had seemed innocent. She was either a very good actress or…

The phone rang, derailing his train of thought and he got up to grab it to stop its annoying ringing. "What do you want?" he asked crossly before he even knew who it was. He paused as he listened to his friend talk. "Hey, Kurama. Nah, I've been up." Pause. "He what?" he asked, slight amusement in his voice. "Yeah, I'll be right over."

He grabbed his coat and was about to leave, then thought better of it. Turning back, he went into Kuwabara's room, planning on waking him up.

"There's a sight I did not want to see," Yusuke said, seeing Kuwabara sprawled across his bed in only boxers and only half the blanket on him, a bit of drool seeping out of his mouth. "Kuwabara." No response. "Kuwabara!" The soft ticking of the clock was the only sound. "KUWABARA!" Fed up, he sent a small spirit blast over his head, knocking down the headboard so that it fell on him.

Kuwabara shot out of bed and yelled at Yusuke, but he ignored it. Yusuke explained what was going on quickly and told him to meet him at Kurama's. Then he was off and out the door into the night.

This night was turning out to be a very interesting one.

* * *

"What, but you…? How did…?" Sango began, but couldn't form a coherent sentence.

Kagura, it could be no one else, stood in front of her, a single poisonous bee fluttering behind her, watching with its little beady eyes. It was most definitely her, right down to the little details, such as her fan and the feathers she had.

The well had been sealed and, besides their group, Naraku had been the only being to pass through into present before it closed. That meant… Kagura had been alive for the past five hundred years?

"That's right. It's been five hundred years, though you haven't aged a bit," Kagura mentioned as though curious about that fact.

"Funny, you look older. Your face shows it, especially around the eyes," Sango told her. In actuality she appeared the same, but maybe it was the pain in her ankle because she wasn't in a good mood. Kagura looked angry then and used her fan to send a blade of wind at her, causing Sango to jump out of the way to dodge. "Alright, no jokes then," she murmured to herself.

"For five hundred years I was free. Free from Naraku, mostly living in Makai," the demon said.

"Makai?" Sango asked, interrupting.

"The demon world. Demons were becoming too powerful so another world was created and the demons were forced into it, keeping them out of this human world so the humans could live in peace—though some escaped or managed to avoid going through," Kagura informed her. Well, that explained why there weren't too many demons running around and definitely most not being as powerful as before. Kagura continued, "I didn't mind being in the demon world, as long as I was free. But then for no reason, Naraku shows back up five centuries later and I'm his once more." Her voice sounded bitter. "And you know what he asked me to do now?"

"I could take a good guess," Sango responded, readying her sword.

"Yes, destroy your little group," she said, "and I'll start with you!"

With a flick of her wrist, multiple blades of wind were sent her way and Sango somersaulted out of the way to avoid them, though the trees behind her got a bad beating, one of the smaller falling completely over. Getting to her feet, Sango ran forward and swung at Kagura a few times but the demon only jumped backward and away.

The wind sorceress sent a few tornado-looking attacks of wind at her that Sango scrambled to avoid as they tore up the area around them. Once they had dissipated, Sango leap forward for another attack, surprising Kagura with the sudden burst of speed. What could she say? She had been fighting a fast demon all night, some of it must have rubbed off on her. Sango would have landed the attack, however, had she not landed on her bad foot before she could swing.

Sango cried out as her ankle gave way, causing her to crash to the ground, her ankle throbbing. As she sat on the grass, blades came at her, slicing through her clothes to get at skin, breaking it and causing blood to flow. She threw up her arms to cover her face, biting her lip to distract her from the other pain. More blades still came, never stopping as Sango slowly got to feet. With a cry, she shot forward and swung blindly, one arm still covering her face. A hiss of pain met her ears.

Kagura kicked the demon slayer in the stomach in rage and Sango doubled over, falling once more to the ground on her back. She glanced up to see Kagura holding a wounded arm, the arm that held her fan. Blood spurted out and dripped down her arm even with the pressure Kagura tried to put on it.

The demon looked like she might still attack again, when her attention was diverted. There was strong energy moving around nearby… and fast. She looked into the dark woods, muttering, "something powerful is coming." She looked down at the demon slayer. "You were lucky this time. Or…" She signaled and Naraku's bee suddenly shot forward before the slayer could blink, stinging her in the arm, "maybe not."

Kagura took a feather and let it fall to the ground where it enlarged before she got on and quickly sped away, making her exit. Sango felt her head becoming heavy and she let it drop to the grass, looking upward toward the sky, though she could only see parts of it because of the trees blocking the way.

She closed her eyes for a few moments and when she opened them, she found red eyes staring down at her. Four of them.

Sango blinked until the two short demons she saw above her turned back into one, trying to get her vision to stop from doubling. It didn't work for long, her vision not working that well.

"You. Don't…" she said, her words slow. She tried to move away, but her body wasn't listening.

His lips moved, but she heard no sound. Spots began appearing in her vision so she closed her eyes and when she opened them again, what she thought was only a second later, he was beside her, kneeling instead of standing.

The last thing she remembered seeing were red crimson eyes.

Then there was only darkness.

* * *

Next Chapter:** Chapter Seven- Unlikely Compromise**


	7. Chapter Seven: Unlikely Compromise

Extra long, because, well, it took awhile to get this one up, partly because of the problem I had with the Internet so I just kept typing and typing… 

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or Yu Yu Hakusho!

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* * *

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**Fragmentation**

**Chapter Seven- Unlikely Compromise**

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She became aware only once and awhile at odd moments, giving her a few fragmented memories in what probably was hours. Traveling unimaginably fast, the surroundings hardly even a blur… being placed on something soft… two emerald orbs in front of her… cold air against her skin… the feeling of something sucking the life out of her. Though Sango supposed she should be thankful; if she was aware even the slightest bit, it meant she wasn't dead. At least, not yet.

Bits of conversation had come to her too, but her mind hadn't caught up enough for her to actually understand the words. She knew they were speaking her native tongue and knew the words they were using, yet at the same time the meaning was somehow elusive to her. She could pick up key words, however, such as "Hiei", "woman", "hanyou", and "unconscious", though even these hardly made sense.

When she was finally conscious for more than a few seconds, the first and only thing she could notice was the throbbing pain her body was experiencing. Her head was aching with a dull thud and her ankle still hurt, though surprising not as much as before. There was also a pulsating feeling coming from the arm Naraku's bee had stung. Kagura had done quite a number on her.

She peeked open one eye to look down at herself and survey the damage, though immediately wished she hadn't. As soon as she saw the random assortment of cuts and bruises littering her skin, the stinging of them suddenly came to her. Why was it that she always only started feeling pain after catching sight of a wound?

As soon as the pain rushed through her, she squeezed her eye shut, wishing for the darkness to take her again, but by then she was already too aware to go back to the bliss unconsciousness would have brought. While she attempted to suppress the pain, she began noticing things around her, small details that she could notice without even opening her eyes. She lay on a soft object, most likely a bed, because, really, what else could it logically be? The quiet ticking of a clock could be heard through the dark room—when she had cracked open an eye briefly she had noticed how dark the room was, probably the only light coming from the moon through her window somewhere, allowing her to see a small bit. Was it the same night, or had she been out for a whole day? Or maybe more? And how had she gotten home? She didn't remember walking there… Had Inuyasha, or someone else, found her and brought her back?

The object she lay on creaked ever so slightly when she moved and her body stiffened. Her bed didn't creak. Which meant… she wasn't home.

"You are finally awake," a smooth, male voice said from the back of the room.

Sango opened her eyes and tried to lift her head in his direction, but her head felt too heavy to keep up and she let it drop back to the pillow. Instead, when she heard no protests or movements from whoever was in the room, she lifted herself up with her arms (carefully, not wanting to upset her already annoying headache) and leaned against the headboard behind her.

The man continued, "I was beginning to worry I hadn't taken the poison out in time."

She focused her hazy gaze to the back on the room and found a red-haired man sitting in a chair off to the side, a man she recognized as one of the ones she and her friends had fought, specifically Miroku, having several whip wounds to show for it. Her body tensed further and she discreetly slid a hand behind her back, searching for one of her knives—just in case.

However, she was not as discreet as she'd hoped.

"I've removed all the weapons you had on you," he informed her, his tone as polite as ever even though he probably knew what she had had in mind. As he spoke, she found his words true as her hand only met the decoration of vines attached to the headboard behind her. Her mind raced, thinking of another option. "I couldn't take the chance of you waking up and attacking me while I was trying to help you," the redhead explained. He motioned to a desk by the window on the other side of the room from him, all her weapons laid out almost innocently on the top. Once again, seeming to know exactly what was going through her mind, he commented, "they're all there."

Not trusting his words—he was, after all, the enemy, at least at this point—she mentally went through all the weapons she had brought with her and found them all gone. Sango kept her eyes on the man, though from the corner of her eye looked at the weapons. He was sitting away from them. If she made a jump for it, she could most likely get there before him. He was strong, he had to be to use a whip like he did, but if she could get a weapon… The red-haired man couldn't be as fast as the short demon, she could make it. Though with her hurt ankle…

In one quick movement, removing pain from her mind as much as she could, she brought her knees to her and planted her feet firmly on the bed. She was about to spring up and make a jump from the bed when suddenly something wrapped around her wrists from behind, tying her down. Not expecting this and already starting her jump, she fell back onto the bed with force as she lost her balance. Her headache came back full force, throbbing and she groaned.

Sango glanced backward at her wrists, her arms in a painful position behind her as she was half-lying down, her hands behind her back preventing her from truly lying flat. Vines were tangled around her wrists, tying them together and keeping them against the headboard; the same vines she had thought were just decorations attached to his headboard. She cursed herself mentally for not thinking of the possibility of him having some sort of power.

Her pride as a fighter slightly bruised, she sat up once more to get in a more comfortable position and leaned heavily against the back of the bed while her wrist remained tied. Struggling only made them tighten around her.

Sango heard the man sigh. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to tie you down, but if you're going to be violent…"

She spoke for the first time since regaining consciousness. "Where am I?"

"You're inside my home," he answered simply.

He reached over and turned on a small lamp, allowing her to see her surrounding better in a bit more detail, as though he were trying to make her more comfortable with the area around her. Although she was grateful as her eyes focused better, she still regarded him suspiciously.

"How'd I get here? And why am I here?" she asked slowly, mostly because of her throbbing skull, though warily all the same. Was the reason they took her the same reason they had taken Kagome?

"You have Hiei to thank for that," he began.

"Hiei?" she interrupted.

"The demon that you were fighting last time we met," he explained. When she nodded her understanding and kept quiet, he continued, "I believe he would have brought you to Yukina to be healed, she is much more effective than I, but he didn't trust you… to behave yourself with all your weapons." He got up and moved closer to Sango, leaning against the door, which either was the way out or a closet. He went on before she could ask who this "Yukina" girl was. "So he brought you to me instead." He turned his emerald eyes to look to the other side of the room, near the window. "Isn't that right, Hiei?"

"Hn."

Sango nearly jumped but was able to stop herself from reacting. She had not realized he was there, let alone when he had arrived, which wasn't good. She was usually very capable of sensing demons near her. Her guard was down and she was becoming easily flustered. Not good. So not good.

Looking over to regard the demon—who she now knew as Hiei—their eyes met, though he looked away as soon as they did, crossing his arms. "Don't jump to such absurd conclusions, fox," he snapped at the red-haired one. "I only brought her because she might have some information that's useful." Pause. "If not, then we can dispose of her."

Being held no higher than a toy would, being able to thrown away at will, annoyed her, but she choose not to argue back. As long as she was unable to move her arms, infuriating the demon didn't seem to be the wisest thing to do. Of course, now all she had to do was keep that in mind, which would be harder than it sounded.

Kurama, however, knew something the woman did not. Hiei was never one to take any prisoners and always killed the enemy, if the opportunity presented itself. He smartly kept his mouth shut.

"But obviously you don't trust me, taking everything sharp and pointy away from me," she said dryly. "Then you wouldn't be able to tell if anything I said was a lie or not." Sango ignored Hiei, talking only to his emerald-eyed friend that she had yet to learn the name of (though the demon had called him "fox", which she did not know the significance of).

"Actually, even if I did trust you, I would have had to take them away to address your wounds. Giving them back, or rather, lack there of, shows my distrust," the fox said with a small smile.

Rather than responding to that logic—and mainly because Sango didn't have a reply to it—she changed the subject. "Why did you help me?" she inquired curiously. Her gaze shifted unknowingly to Hiei for a second then, realizing what she was doing, she snapped back to look at the fox.

"We have no real reason to kill you," he answered simply.

_Only the hanyou,_ was the unspoken part. "That doesn't answer my question."

Kurama remained quiet after her statement, as did Hiei, but that wasn't unusual for him. Why he was silent… the reason he had helped her was mainly because Hiei had brought her to him; Kurama hadn't thought twice about it. As to why Hiei brought her though, that was only known to him, or maybe… not even he knew the answer. Either way, both stayed silent.

When it was obvious that neither were going to speak, Sango let out a breath and shifted her position trying to get more comfortable. She felt the vines ease just the slightest bit, enough to still be tight so that she couldn't escape (not that she had much of a chance to get anywhere with he fox and Hiei now in the room) but loose enough for comfort. She slouched against the back of the bed, feeling the strange pulse that seemed to go only through her right arm, but the comfort of silk sliding against her skin made up for it.

For the second time that night (the first time being when she discovered she wasn't in her own bed), she felt the shock of realization. Sango looked down at herself and her face turned immediately red from embarrassment and anger when she found herself in emerald, silk pajamas instead of the outfit she had started out in.

"W-where are my clothes!" she blurted out. It was _one_ thing to take her weapons, it was another to remove her clothes when_ she wasn't even conscious!_

Noticing her obvious alarm, the fox quickly reassured her, while either not noticing or not caring about the glare Hiei was giving him. "I put them on the side." He gestured to a bloody heap of materials, which at least use to be her clothes, but hardly looked like it now with so many rips in it. "Your clothes were in shambles already and you were bleeding from various wounds on your body. I needed to treat them as soon as possible or else you might have scarred, if not bled to death. There was no time for modesty."

She brought her knees up to her chest in a shielding position as the redhead explained, as though hiding herself now would make up for it before. Of course, being fully clothed now, it didn't make much of a difference. Well, it could've been worse she supposed. Her undergarments well still intact and in place, meaning at least some of her had been concealed.

Her face still red with embarrassment, she looked away while bringing her knees still closer, covering herself as much of her as possible. She silently wished she was able to hug her legs to her. "Pervert," she muttered.

A startled laugh escaped Kurama's lips. He couldn't help it; no one had ever accused _him_ of being a pervert before. "I assure you, your virtue is still intact." For some reason, the short demon looked annoyed, but the fox didn't pay any attention to it. His gaze remained on Sango and looked down to her right arm, half hidden behind her back. "Though that reminds me…"

The redhead moved closer to her and Sango, now unnerved by him, shifted away as much as she could but her restraints held her in place. He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for her arm, giving her a small, reassuring smile that hardly put her at ease. Under normal circumstances it would have probably worked, but not now.

He pushed up the sleeve of her—or rather, his—pajamas on the right side, revealing a small plant attached to her arm. A few of the little, green limbs actually were in her arm, going under her skin, and pulsating in time with her heartbeat. So _that_ was what was making her entire right arm pulse? 

"What is _that_?" Sango asked, alarmed.

"You had poison inside you. Luckily, Hiei got you here fast enough that this plant was able to take out the poison from your veins. Though if you leave it in too long, they'll start to leeching off your life force," he told her calmly as he removed the plant carefully, while Sango tried not to wince in pain.

Meanwhile, as he so gently removed the implement he had used to save her life, she was asking the same question over and over in her mind. _Why are you helping me?_ The enemy didn't normally help the prisoner, which left her puzzled as to where both of their groups stood. But, no, she told herself firmly, they had been trying to kill her and her friends before, or at least, hurt them. She couldn't forget that.

After he put a bit of some kind of healing salve on her arm—since it was bleeding where he had removed the plant—she spoke. "Can you untie me too?" she asked, annoyance in her voice. She still didn't like the thought of the fox so close and talking was a good distraction.

"Do you actually believe that I would give you a chance to go for your weapons once again?" He asked with a wry smile.

Sango watched as the plant in the redhead's hand grew smaller and smaller until it digressed into its earliest stage, a seed. Her eyes widened a fraction in surprise, watching a process in reverse that would normally take months take place in only seconds. Finally when she tore her eyes from it, she responded with a small shrug, "it was worth a shot." The fox moved away then, and she breathed an inward sigh of relief, some of the tension leaving her muscles as she turned to Hiei. "And you? What's your say in this?"

Somewhere during her and the other man's conversation, Hiei had moved so that he was sitting on the windowsill, staring out into the night. He turned his intense, cold gaze to Sango, sending a chill down her spine, though it wasn't entirely a bad feeling. "I've seen you fight," he responded. He looked to the emerald-eyed man. "Keep her tied."

She felt a mixture of emotions. Annoyance that she was still their captive, yet a bit flattered by the unintentional compliment to her fighting skills. She knew so little about him, but knew enough that the demon probably rarely gave out anything resembling a compliment.

Some of her thoughts must have been readable on her face (though she was usually good at keeping her face blank—was he that good of a reader?) because Hiei snapped, "Don't think yourself special just because we haven't killed you yet."

"Oh, I think myself very special with these… precautions taken on my account," she said, tugging on her tied hands to show them what she meant. She gave him a bitter smile.

Then just like that, he was in front of her. She hadn't seen him move, not even a muscle, from where he was sitting on the sill. A warm hand, almost too warm, was closed around her throat, crimson eyes trying to burn through her. Man, if he had heat vision, she'd be dead already.

"I should kill you," the demon informed her.

Although her heart was pounding even more than her head, she responded calmly, "you wouldn't go through all the trouble of bringing me here just to kill me now."

Their eyes locked for only God knows how long, neither showing any sign of backing down.

"What is it with you women and talking back?" an obnoxious voice came from the door.

Both turned their heads to look at the new arrival, Sango with caution, Hiei with an expressionless face. A man was leaning one shoulder against the wall, his arms crossed, and watching Hiei and Sango with a sly smile. Sango immediately remembered him as the man who had shot that weird energy out of his finger and at Kagome and Inuyasha. Even if she'd forgotten such an important detail, his arrogant nature would have been familiar to her.

Her eyes narrowed, though in her mind she was thinking of his question. Normally she wouldn't be so free with her speech (and anger), but with her captors now… She felt no hostility from them. Somehow she knew they wouldn't hurt her and that's why she let herself snap back at them without fear. Was this how Kagome felt when they captured her? Possibly, but not matter what, Kagome would show resistance and speak her mind even with the consequences that'd come with it. Perhaps that would be her downfall.

Hiei let go of his grip on Sango as the fox greeted the newest person. "Yusuke, this is…" the redhead paused, realizing he had never learned her name. "I'm sorry, what is your name?"

Sango stared at him incredulously. How could he be so polite? She was tied up and _he_ acted like they were at some kind of formal dinner. She continued to stare, not answering.

"Sango," Hiei answered for her curtly.

She whipped her head around in surprise (and immediately regretted it when flashes of pain swept through her), looking at the demon. "How do you know that?"

Yusuke came up and slung his arm around Hiei's neck in a friendly way. "Hiei's just a real people person. Loves them to death, really," Yusuke said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

Hiei didn't even move, though he glared upward. "Remove your arm now, or I'll remove it for you." From the way he said it, he meant more than just kindly detaching it. Oh, no, if Yusuke didn't move his arm, Hiei would take it away by removing it from its socket in the most painful way possible.

Yusuke, however, only laughed it off and began walking around the room. He whistled appreciatively when he saw the various knives and other weapons on the desk, all the implements the fox had taken from Sango. He then moved back until he was leaning against the wall, bending one leg so that he could rest one foot against it as well.

It was then that a second person burst into the room, his cheeks red and he seemed exhausted. He turned his black eyes on the rest of the group, looking for some answers. "Alright, what's so important that we had to get up and come here so early—" he stopped talking, finally taking notice of Sango. "Who's that?"

"Is your memory that bad?" Yusuke asked his friend, one eyebrow raised.

"Fool," Hiei muttered while Kurama began explaining, "she is one of the women with the half-demon."

"Oh, great. Another one of you," Sango said, while her nervousness grew. Being in a room with four men—well, three men and a demon—and not being able to defend herself, let alone move her arms… yeah, she was just a _bit_ uncomfortable and nervous about that fact. With her nervousness, the vines grew tighter around her. Great, just great. Trying to keep her mind off it, she asked, "who are you then?"

He seemed to grow taller then, puffing his chest out proudly, and action that reminded her of Shippo. "I am the great Kuwabara!"

She controlled the small laugh that wanted to escape at the display, but allowed a small smile. Some of the apprehension eased away and the plant around her loosened, giving her wrists some space to move, though still not enough to be able to escape. Not that she had much of a chance anyway with so many people, not to mention she wouldn't want to leave without her weapons. Hey, they were expensive.

Kuwabara might have gone on, but the fox made a small motion to quiet him. He seemed very alert and quickly walked to the door, signaling the others to be quiet as well, which tempted Sango to yell , but she held her tongue. Hiei, seeming to know what she was thinking, gave her a look, telling her that if she did, she deeply regret it. Not that that's why she hadn't done it. Okay, well maybe that was part of the reason.

The redhead's hand reached for the doorknob and in one fluid motion, he opened the door, making a most surprising person drop into the room, almost falling to the floor if it hadn't been for Kurama.

"Er… hello."

* * *

She reached blindly for her coat, hand reaching and almost knocking various other objects over in the process. Luckily nothing fell and all remained quiet (and dark) in the apartment. Putting on her coat and wrapping her scarf around her neck,—it was getting chilly outside—Kagome then proceeded out of her apartment, only stopping for a moment to lock the door.

Feeling a bit giddy that she had gotten with it, she smiled smugly as she crossed her arms, heading down the dimly lit hallway… when of course, she was suddenly yanked back by her scarf.

Kagome turned, prepared to detach whatever her scarf had gotten caught on, when she found hands holding the end of it. Slowly she looked up, knowing she was in for it now, and not surprisingly, saw an irritated Inuyasha looking down at her.

She laughed nervously.

"And where do you think your going?" he inquired with a bit of an edge to it, tugging a bit on her scarf for emphasis.

After the run in with Yusuke and his friends, Inuyasha had told her and Sango to stay put; they'd go out all together as a group after some sleep. Neither her nor Sango seemed to obey that order.

Kagome wasn't too concerned for Sango though—she often went out at random hours, demon hunting. However, that didn't stop the weird feeling she got in her stomach when she thought of her friend out there tonight. Not necessarily bad, but not good either. She pushed it aside. If Sango didn't come back by the time Kagome got home, then she'd alert the guys.

Meanwhile, Kagome tried to stall. "How'd you even know I was leaving!"

While speaking, she yanked her scarf away from his grasp, trying to get free and causing yet another disturbance to put off having to explain. She anticipated him to try and hold onto it so she used extra force. Unfortunately, he didn't, causing her to almost fall backward. Inuyasha stopped her from falling at the last minute by grabbing and tugging on the scarf she had just gotten back from him, causing her to gag for a moment. She glared at him and took the end of the scarf back once more.

He looked amused. "Feh, I was getting a snack. And you're a noisy walker," he informed her before moving so that he blocked her and her way out.

She'd almost forgotten, those big (though very cute) dog ears of his weren't just for show, they actually did give him an acute sense of hearing. Which meant, though she tried to be discreet, even at her quietest, he'd probably hear her. Damn.

"Am not!" she said in a pathetic defense while her mind was racing. She distracted, "Hey, where's your hat? You know you shouldn't go out without it, people would freak, seeing someone with cat ears."

"They're _dog_ ears," he replied, annoyed.

Shoots, scores, and the crowd goes wild. Her distraction was working.

"Well, they _look_ like cat ears," she responded, taking a step toward him.

"I don't—hey, are you trying to change the subject?" he asked suspiciously, eyes narrowing.

"I think it is you who is trying to change the subject," she said while going on her tipitoes, giving him a jab in the chest.

He looked at her with a half-annoyed, half-perplexed look. "How is that possible? _You're_ the one that started this whole ear thing," he told her. "Are you trying to confuse me?"

Kagome backed off a bit, offering a half-smile. "Depends. Is it working?"

Pause. "Kind of." He shook her head, as if trying to clear his mind of all the nonsense she had distracted him with. "Where are you going?" His tone was on this edge of harsh, wanting a straight answer.

Luckily, by then she already had her excuse all planned out. "I'm going out to the laundromat next door."

"Then how come you have no laundry?"

Well, she never said it was a good excuse.

Plan B might have been _run!_ but she had a hunch (just a small one) that he'd be able to catch her. Right, that was out. She'd have to talk her way out of this one.

"Well, er… that's because I… my laundry's already there! Yeah, and I left it there by mistake and with all the confusion lately I, um, forgot about it," she told him quickly.

He raised an eyebrow. "And you have to get it _now_? In the middle of the night?"

"Er, yeah because then I won't have anything to wear tomorrow! So if you'll excuse me…" Kagome pushed past him, but he grabbed her arm.

He said her name in a way that made her stop and feel guilty, but she mentally shook her head, getting it out of her mind. They spent the next few minutes arguing quietly (more like she was quiet and she had to keep reminding him to keep his voice down since other tenants were trying to sleep). Finally, she convinced him, assuring him that she'd be back very soon and she didn't need a babysitter to walk ten feet, thank you very much. It was only a short walk, after all.

_Sorry Inuyasha,_ she thought guiltily as she walked the opposite way from the laundromat, the wind chilling her down to her bones. She felt sorry that she lied to him, but her resolve was set. She had decided a few hours before that she needed to talk to Yusuke and his friends, and she needed to do it alone. Inuyasha wouldn't stay peaceful long, if at all, just wanting to fight the others. It wasn't like he didn't have good reason to, she could understand his wanting to pound them, but if she could just talk to them even for a minute… she had a gut feeling it would do some good. Kagome knew Yusuke was a good guy. She knew.

…She hoped.

Her plan of action had been to go to where she had met Yusuke the second time, at his work. She hoped they'd be willing to give out an address of some sort, or that maybe she could charm her way into getting it. Though she really hoped whoever was working there now would just give it out, because she was almost positive she would fail miserably at the latter. Or, if Lady Luck was really with her, Yusuke would have the shift there tonight. Was she really that lucky? No, no she wasn't.

Kagome buttoned her jacket so she wouldn't have to keep holding it closed, though the cold air nipped at her either way. It was fall, it wasn't suppose to be this cold. Oh, well, nothing she could so about that.

A rather cruel gust of wind came at her, almost causing her to shiver, and lifted her scarf right off of her. Kagome squeaked in protest, though, of course, it did no good as she tried to grasp the elusive accessory. It began flying away, caught in the wind and Kagome ran through the city after it.

"Get back here!" she cried as she ran, pushing the hair that blew into her face away. Finally, the gust died down and the scarf stopped, falling to the sidewalk. "Evil wind," she muttered as she snatched it up.

Kagome straightened herself, though she was unable to see because of her wild hair had fallen in front of her face. Trying to push it away properly without tangling it, she wasn't expecting someone to suddenly run into her. A small "oomph" escaped her as she staggered back, steadied only by the person who had run into her.

"I'm really, really sorry, miss," the man said quickly before he sped away.

Finally giving up, Kagome shook her head until her hair parted and she could see again. She was about to call after the man to say something along the lines of, "it's alright" but stopped herself abruptly when she saw the man who was jogging away.

Was that…?

He looked familiar, but… No, she couldn't mistake that orange hair and he was wearing the same outfit, at least, she thought it was.

Yes, it definitely was one of her former captures.

A smile tugged at the corner of her lips as a plan formed in her mind. Well, she wanted to talk to one of them. He was as good as any and he wasn't totally impulsive, like Inuyasha and Yusuke. She might be able to reason with him. Yes. Yes, she was certain she could.

_And the hunter stalks her prey—so they can have a civilized conversation, of course,_ Kagome thought as she began following him.

And it wasn't easy. Seeing that he was tall so therefore had longer legs, was in shape, and male, he was generally faster than her. The only reason she was able to really keep up with him was because he seemed tired or at least not using all his energy at the moment.

Remembering how Inuyasha had called her noisy, she tried to be as quiet as possible, but he was oblivious anyway. She followed him for who knows how long until he finally stopped at a small house. Everything in the house seemed still, no lights on from what she could see through the windows, but she was certain that someone lived there. It was too well kept for there to be no residents, not to mention the picturesque garden to the side.

The man went up to the door, tried the doorknob and, finding it unlocked, just walked right inside. Kagome cautiously opened the gate and followed the path up to the door. She paused at it, suddenly unsure. Should she really just walk in?

She shook her head to removed all doubt and pushed the door open, seeing as how the orange haired man had forgotten to close it all the way. Kagome gently closed it, feeling the need to make the house secure, plus, it was the polite thing to do.

Once in the house, she searched the darkness and upon seeing a soft light coming from under the crack of a door upstairs she concluded that was where they must be. Her heart suddenly beating quickly, she walked toward the stairs, one hand holding both ends of her scarf so they wouldn't catch on anything and knock anything over, alerting them of her presence.

Ascending the stairs, she was silently thankful that the steps did not creak at all and she slowly went to the door with the light. Her heart was still pounding, she could feel it in her chest and her ears pounded in time with it as well. Letting out a shaky breath, she closed her eyes and leaned against the door, putting her ear against it to listen inside.

She heard voices coming from inside, meaning that there was more than just the orange haired one in the room. She could only hear the muffled talking, no words clear, only their tones and the general sound of their voice. She counted at least three males and surprisingly, she heard the feminine tone of a woman. Strange, she hadn't remembered a woman with the group, except the blue-haired one but her voice had been higher and had an accent.

The talking ceased, but Kagome didn't seem to notice as she tried to place the woman's voice. The female's voice inside kind of reminded her of…

The door abruptly opened and for the third time that night, she was falling, only this time, she was falling forward. She tried to find something to hold onto to keep her from falling, but found none. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for impact. However, the person who opened the door went to their knees and caught her before Kagome's face could come into contact with the floor.

She peeked one eye open, but all she saw was the red material of someone's shirt. Blinking open both eyes, she looked up into emerald eyes.

"Er… hello."

Most of them in the room looked surprised to see her, or, in Hiei's case, not really caring at all. Slowly, she stood up, the man who caught her standing up with her, his arms still around her as though he wasn't sure she'd stay up on her own. Kagome recognized him as the one who had drugged her and she stepped away though trying not to be rude, which was ironic really, since they had been the ones to kidnap her.

She looked around to see Yusuke's two other friends and Yusuke himself in the room, their eyes locking for a moment before she looked away. "It's like one big party in here, isn't it?" It was then that she became aware of the person on the bed. "Sango!" Kagome exclaimed at the same time her friend said her name, though Sango said it with more warning, like a mother would say to a child who she knew was up to no good.

A sheepish look came upon Kagome's face as she nervously looked around her, locking her hands behind her back. Okay, maybe she should have thought her plan out more thoroughly, but it wasn't like she expected them all to be there! Or have Sango with them for that matter.

"Kagome! What are you doing here?" Yusuke questioned skeptically.

She began twisting her fingers behind her back as she responded, "well, um, I came to talk actually."

He raised an eyebrow while Sango groaned, letting her head fall back to hit the headboard, shaking it. "Kagome…"

"Look, I think we just need to talk, that's why I came. You're not bad people, and neither are we," Kagome explained while Sango continued to shake her head.

Yusuke scoffed at her words and Kuwabara said, "brainwashing…" in a low singsong voice.

At Sango's baffled look, Kagome told her, "they think Inuyasha brainwashed us and that he's our master or leader or something like that."

The demon slayer's face looked angry then, but before she could voice her protests, Yusuke spoke to Kagome, his voice having much irritation in it. Maybe it was the mention of Inuyasha's name, or maybe it was that he didn't like to hear that they, or mainly Kagome, had a "master" that she was completely devoted to.

"Would you just go sit with your friend," he ordered her, "we've got the upper hand here, four to two and not even that since your friend is tied. That means you're our hostage now." He added as an after thought, "again."

Kagome looked startled, then crossed her arms in a huff, refusing to follow his command. Her eyes dared him to do something about it. The rest just watched the exchange, wondering what the Spirit Detective would do. Yusuke let out a breath of pure annoyance, before trudging over to Kagome and, without a word, picked her up, throwing her over one shoulder. She squeaked in protest, but didn't have enough time to react before he dropped her on the bed next to the demon slayer.

Kagome got up from her sprawled position and sat down properly next to Sango, but not before giving Yusuke a dirty look that only made him smile haughtily.

"Welcome to my hostage situation," Sango told her dryly.

"Ha ha ha," she replied without any humor, "how'd you get here anyway?"

"I got injured pretty bad by a… demon," she said, deciding she'd tell Kagome later who exactly it was. There was no time for discussion now. "He," Sango nodded her head toward the demon, "brought me here."

Hiei looked away from her, gazing out the window into the night instead.

"What?" Kuwabara asked, surprised. He looked to Hiei. "You actually _helped_ her? Out of your own free will?" A grin came on his face, affirming Hiei's suspicions that he wasn't going to like what he was about to say. "Aww, looks like the shrimp's getting soft!"

The death glare the tall, orange haired man received was even worse than the one the demon had given Sango when he had his hand closed around her neck. She hadn't even thought it was possible to give someone a dirtier glare then the one he had given her, but obviously she was wrong. That was talent, right there.

The two men, Yusuke and Kuwabara, began teasing Hiei, though the third stayed out of it, only allowing a smile to grace his lips at their words, while Hiei looked like he was thinking of which of them to kill first. Meanwhile, Kagome and Sango continued to softly talk, one of the things Kagome inquiring about were who each one of them were and her friend explained as best she could.

"Yusuke I know," Kagome said and quickly continued before Sango could ask _how_ she knew him, "the demon is Hiei, who was the one you were fighting, but you don't know what type of demon he is." She didn't mention to Sango that she felt a weird, though familiar power coming from him. Could he have one…? "And the orange haired one is 'the great Kuwabara', right?" Sango nodded, smiling. Kagome gestured to the redhead. "Then who is he?"

"All I know is that Hiei called him 'fox'."

Kagome frowned, not satisfied with the answer. She at least wanted to know the names of the people she was dealing with. "Fox," she called. The redhead turned to her in surprise, probably wondering how she knew that nickname. "What's your real name?"

He looked at her for a moment, really looked at her, before replying. "My real name?" he repeated almost thoughtfully.

"Yeah, you know, your name. What people call you, how you're addressed…" she said with a half-smile.

Hearing her question, the other two men stopped their teasing (though it looked as though Hiei might take out his sword and chop them in half anyway) and looked at the fox, wondering what he might say.

He met her questioning brown eyes. "…Kurama."

Yusuke didn't even try to hide his surprise. He didn't give out his real name to many humans, just having them call him 'Shuichi', his human name. Only those he trusted knew his real name and he certainly couldn't trust them. Then what was different about these two girls?

He shook his head, getting such thoughts out. "Can we all just remember for a second that we're _enemies_ and stop all this polite, nice crap?"

"We're not enemies!" Kagome protested.

"Then what are we?" Yusuke exclaimed.

"The... thenon-enemy type people!" Kagome retorted after a moment's thought. She wasn't able to give a better answer, though her reply was horrible.

Yusuke let out an exasperated breath, taking a few steps toward the bed. "Then why the hell are we fighting all the time!"

"That's what I'm saying!" she replied, going to her knees on the bed so that she was closer to him.

He moved so that he was by the side of the bed, making him not even a foot away from her. "You're not making sense!" Yusuke informed her.

"Um, guys…" Kuwabara said, taking a step forward, trying to get them to calm down. He was ignored.

"I'm making perfect sense!" she declared, sitting up taller so that their faces were only inches apart since he was bent a bit to look down at her. Her brown eyes were ablaze, as well as his, until suddenly, his softened and a grin tugged at his lips.

Yusuke abruptly started laughing, backing up until he hit the wall, his shoulders shaking with his laughter.

"I don't see what's so funny," she said crossly, arms crossed.

"We're fighting over the stupidest thing," he said between gasps of breath.

Sango looked at Yusuke like he was crazy, while Kuwabara and Kurama only shook their heads. Hiei muttered something that sounded like, "humans," in a negative way. Kagome, however, could feel a small smile form on her face. Seeing Kagome's smile, the grin on Yusuke's face widened.

Sango tugged on her restraints, trying to get more comfortable since her arms were hurting from being in the same position for so long, but could not without making the vines tighter. She let out an annoyed sound, before collapsing back again the headboard.

"Having trouble?" Hiei said with a small smirk.

She glared. "I won't be here for long before Inuyasha comes and knocks the house down with his sword."

Kagome interjected into the conversation. "Actually, that's not true. He… kind of doesn't know you're missing."

Sango lifted an eyebrow. "What do you mean kind of? You didn't tell them, did you?"

Kagome's eyes shifted and she began twisting her hands in her lap.

When Sango began to groan, Kagome protested, "but you disappear for hours often, so how was I to know you were in trouble? But I saw him," nodded her head to Kuwabara, "and got a bad feeling so I followed." Okay, so she lied about the reason why she came, but she didn't feel like getting scolded by her friend or getting told how foolish she had been from anyone else in the room.

The demon slayer rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and got yourself captured. Again. In the same night."

Kagome frowned. "Well, what was I suppose to do? I didn't know you were inside, but I thought if I listened in I might be able to find out something, so I just came in." Oh, if she were Pinocchio, her nose would be huge.

"With no plan whatsoever," Yusuke added with a smile.

"Hey, I'm making this up as I go along," she declared as she got off the bed, hands on hips. His smile turned to a grin at the display.

Hiei looked annoyed at the whole conversation, though only because they were letting their captives talk back so freely to them. He took a threatening step toward Kagome, which seemed to work since she took a step back and went back onto the bed with Sango. Until Kagome found out exactly what the strange energy was coming from the demon (though she was almost positive what it was) she'd try to stay on his nice side. Though even then, she doubted it would help much, he probably wouldn't be willing to give it up…

A knock came at the door and a soft call of, "Shuichi" was heard. Stopping talked as the rest of them hushed up as Kurama went outside into the hallway. Kagome and Sango shared a look.

The room remained quiet, not even Kagome and Sango breaking the silence as she heard the soft murmurs of talking outside, Kurama's voice sounding apologetic. A third voice entered the conversation and it went on for another minute or two before it was quiet and Kurama opened the door.

The redhead reentered the room, only this time a familiar woman followed him inside. After all, blue hair like hers wasn't that easy to forget. It bounced in its ponytail as she walked, her pink eyes dancing with happiness as they always were. The girl seemed to be as alive and cheerful as ever, even at the ungodly hour where sleep was wearing down on most of them. Most, not all.

"Everyone's all together I see. Good, it makes my job much easier. Hello, boys," she greeted. She blinked in surprise. "And girls." She looked to Kurama questioningly.

He sighed. "It's a long story, Botan."

She just shrugged and turned to the girls. "Hello, I'm Botan. Ferry girl for the Spirit World."

_Ferry girl? Spirit World?_ Kagome found herself wondering, but decided to ask about it later.

"Why does everyone act like they're _not_ hostages?" Yusuke asked, annoyed. He threw up his arms in a surrendering sort of way. "I give up."

"Well actually, Koenma been doing some more research on Kagome," Botan started, pausing for only a second when Kagome let out a "hey!" in protest, "and actually had a few questions for her. I was just going to tell them to you, Yusuke, since you seemed to know her, but this worked out wonderfully."

"Wait, if you were looking for Yusuke, why'd you come here?" Kuwabara asked.

"You weren't home so I thought Kurama might know where you are," Botan said as though it were an obvious answer.

She then took the briefcase that she had by her side and set it on the bed. With an "excuse me" to the two girls on it, she climbed on as well, beginning to do something with the case, which Kagome noticed had a small screen on it. She began murmuring to it, but she couldn't hear because Botan was speaking too soft.

"What kind of questions?" Kagome asked, "and who's Koenma?"

It was Kurama that answered, since Botan seemed to be concentrating. "The Prince of the Spirit World."

"What's the Spirit World?" Kagome inquired. Now seemed as good a time as any to ask.

"Is it like the Demon World?" Sango asked from beside her. Kagome looked at her, surprised. There was a whole world of demons! Where had she heard that term anyway?

"In the Demon World, there are demons, and the Spirit World, well…" Kuwabara began.

"Spirits?" Sango finished for him.

"Yeah," he agreed, nodding. He hadn't wanted to just come out and say it because then she might think they were insane. Then again, she knew of demons, spirits were that much of a stretch.

"Here we are!" Botan said happily.

She turned the open briefcase toward Kagome and she was surprised to see a man in the small screen in it. He had short brown hair with matching eye color, though the two things that struck her as odd were, for one, the abbreviation of Junior that was on his forehead and the strange object in his mouth. Was that a pacifier?

"Talk away," Botan instructed with a smile.

Kagome moved back onto her knees to be closer to the screen, bracing her hands on her thighs so she could lean downward to be on a closer level with it. "Um, hi," she said to the man in the picture, while wondering if he could even hear her.

"Hello, Kagome," he responded. He folded his hand on the desk he sat behind. "I didn't expecting to talk to you in person, but I guess it works out better this way. I have a few questions for you."

She nodded. "Alright." Okay, her plan was finally seeming to work. If she could convince the Prince here that they were good, he could then convince the rest. Then her friends and Yusuke and his allies could stop attacking each other.

_Here goes nothing…_ she thought, while knowing it was the exact opposite.

"You're helping a hanyou, right?"

Kagome nodded. "I help Inuyasha fight demons…" She almost went on about the jewel, but stopped herself. She'd save that for later.

"And you are the priestess Kikyo, are you not?" he questioned. 

She paused, while a part of her felt annoyed. When would people learn that her and Kikyo were _different_? "I'm her reincarnation, yeah—er, yes." She was talking to royalty, after all—the least she could do was speak properly. "But we are two separate people."

He seem to wave off the last of her words. He was the Prince of the Spirit World, he knew all about the reincarnation of souls. "Then why do you help the hanyou that killed her?"

Oh, now she was upset. Her hands balled into fists as she retorted, "Inuyasha didn't kill her! It was Naraku's dastardly deeds that killed her. Inuyasha would never harm Kikyo!" As much as it still hurt her to say that last part, it needed to be said.

Botan, being a woman, gave Kagome a sympathetic look. Whatever they were, foes, allies, acquaintances, she could sympathize with the girl and admired how devote she was to defending her friends.

Koenma looked taken back by her anger, so tried not to say anything to infuriate her more. "Naraku?" he inquired curiously.

"Look, all the things you think Inuyasha's done, that was Naraku! Inuyasha one of the good guys, like me, Sango, and the rest of my friends," Kagome said, trying desperately to get him to understand. "if you have any information on Sango or Miroku, you'd see that they are good people too."

He stopped talking then and, after seeing how serious she truly was, began searching through many papers on his desk, going through different files. "I must have it somewhere…" he mumbled to himself as he looked.

Botan shook her head. "He's so disorganized sometimes…"

Yusuke sneered as he moved closer to Kagome and Botan to be able to see the prince in the screen. "Yeah, more like all the time."

Koenma, finding one file in particular, picked it up and began reading from it. "Miroku, travelling monk. Lived during the Feudal Era. In search of the half-demon who cursed his family. Has a hole in his right palm that can take anything in the surrounding area into a void. Disappearance, age twenty-two." He frowned, then shook her head, moving on. He picked up another file, reading it aloud. "Sango, demon exterminator. Lived during the Feudal Era. Entire village, including family, slaughtered. Brother killed by half-demon that she seeks vengeance on. Disappearance, age nineteen."

Sango let her head fall downward, her bangs hiding her eyes from view. Her hands began shaking in anger, though gladly no one could see them. Just even hearing it… hearing what _he_ had done to her brother… it made her so angry! He brought him back with the jewel… only to kill him later on. Right in front of her.

"The Feudal Era… that was over five hundred years ago," Kurama murmured, mostly to himself.

"What do you mean 'disappearance'?" Yusuke asked Koenma curiously.

"He means I never died," she said quietly, her voice void of emotion.

Botan elbowed Yusuke in the stomach before he could say something stupid like, 'you're over five hundred years old!', all the room grew uncomfortably quiet. Most of the others looked at Sango and then away, but Hiei kept his eyes on the slayer. As though feeling the eyes on her, she glanced up until she found Hiei and met his eyes with her own, so filled with angry and beyond that… emptiness. Wanting to stop the odd feeling in the room, Kagome spoke to Koenma quietly. "Now, if they wanted to destroy this half-demon that you think is Inuyasha, why would they be helping him? The half-demon you're talking about is Naraku." 

"Who _is_ Naraku?" he asked once more.

"He's the reason we're here, we're trying to fight him and stop him from hurting people while trying to put the Shikon Jewel back together before he does." She sighed heavily. "Can't you see? We're on the same side, I know that now. Your… group was trying to stop Inuyasha from killing—though that wasn't him—but it means you're the good guys. Well, so are we."

"The Shikon no Tama?" Koenma breathed, his eyes widening. "Gives power and one wish to its user. It's been lost for…"

"Five hundred years, around the same time Sango and the other disappeared," Kurama finished. He looked to the two women. "How is that possible?"

"We have… ways of traveling back and forth between the times. Now we're just here in the present. And the Jewel is here now, which is why everything has been in such a chaotic lately."

"The jewel _here_? Who has it?" Koenma asked urgently, sitting on the edge of his chair to be closer to the screen.

Kagome suddenly looked embarrassed, her cheeks red. "Well… it's kind of… broken. Lots and lots of little pieces." She stopped there, not telling him it had been her who had broken it for the second time. It wasn't like she had much of a choice! It was either break it again or have Naraku use it, which probably would have ended in the destruction of her world. The first choice was much better and at least gave them some more time. Hopefully they'd get the completed jewel this time.

Koenma slumped in his chair, muttering what sounded like, "my dad's going to have a fit."

Once again, the room quieted until someone spoke. "You mean pieces like this?"

Kagome turned to the speaker to find the demon, Hiei, holding two small fragments of the jewel, looking at them. He tossed the two into air and caught them again before they fell.

Her suspicions from before were confirmed, though it still startled Kagome, causing her eyes widened as she exclaimed, "where did you get those!"

Yusuke was surprised as well, though it answered one question in his mind. He _had_ thought Hiei had been somewhat faster than normal lately… "What does this jewel _do_?" Yusuke asked, inspecting it before Hiei put it back so it was hidden in his cloak.

Koenma, not able to see what was going on but able to hear well enough to know what was going on, shook his head. "I think we need to discuss this more thoroughly. In person," he added.

Kagome paused for a second before nodding. They talked for a few more minutes with some comments from the others in the room and agreed to meet tomorrow afternoon. He'd send Botan or someone else to get them to Spirit World. Kagome bit her lips after agreeing, wondering how she'd explain any of this to Inuyasha without him getting angry…

After giving Yusuke the address to where to find them (and assuring Kuwabara that no, it wasn't a fake), Kurama finally released the plants that held Sango. She sighed in relief and brought her hands in front of her, stretching her arms before rubbing her wrists where the vines had so tightly held. Seeing this, Kurama politely offered an apology that Sango accepted. Realizing she had never thanked him for saving her life, she thanked him as well. Though, she still seemed skittish when he was close. Give her a few weeks, then she might be over it.

Sango went over to the desk that held her weapons and began to take them back, while Hiei commented on the blades. Though his tone was harsh as he spoke, she knew not to pay attention to it, only the actually words mattered. Sango gave him a small smile, some of the anger and tension finally starting to seep out of her.

Meanwhile, Yusuke spoke to Kagome, saying, "I guess this means you guys are free to go."

Kagome got up and stretched, going onto her tipitoes before turning to Yusuke. She poked him once in the chest. "I told you we weren't enemies," she said with a smug smile. She turned toward the door and began walking away, though once she turned back a smile lit her features.

"Yeah, well that's still up for grabs," he replied and grabbed her scarf as he did, tugging on it just as he said the word grabs, in effect making her stumble backwards.

"Okay, I'm just never wearing a scarf again," muttered to herself as she regained her balance, then turned to stick her tongue out at Yusuke for such a cheap trick.

They left a few minutes after that when Sango had gathered all her things, telling the group that they'd see them soon. A few of them had mixed feelings about that fact.

As they descended the stairs quietly—Kurama wanted to avoid waking his mother up again—they talked softly, just as the others had begun to do once Kagome and Sango had closed the door.

"This demon world… it's probably where Naraku's hiding. That's why we've only been able to find his minions lately, and not him." Sango ran one hand through her bangs instead of shaking them out of her eyes. "Even if we can't entirely trust these people," she put up a hand to stop the arguing she knew was going to come from Kagome, "_yet_, we can at least find out what else they might know about Naraku and this demon world. They're sure to know something that could help us out."

They reached the door and Kagome opened it while saying with a sigh, "if only Inuyasha could see that…"

Sango gave her a pat on the shoulder as she past her, going through the doorway. "I'll leave Inuyasha up to you."

"Oh, what a good friend you are," the miko muttered, catching up to her.

Sango laughed, but it died down when she recalled something. "By the way, we've got more problems," Sango informed her friend.

"Tell me something else that's new," Kagome responded, putting her hands in her pockets since they began to feel cold.

"Oh, this is new alright. This problem goes by the name of Kagura. I ran into her last night," Sango informed her. Not feeling like going into a long explanation, she continued, "I'll tell you more once I get some sleep."

Was it saddening that it was almost sunrise and all she could think about was sleeping the day away? Maybe just a bit. 

"Alright then." Kagome, remembering something she had to say since she'd seen Sango that night, smiled her sweetest smile. "Oh, and Sango?" Sango looked over to her inquiring. Kagome's sweet smile turned into a grinned. "Nice pajamas."

To her dismay, Sango felt her cheeks heat up and was immediately thankful for the darkness that hid her blush, though it didn't stop her from grumbling. 

"Not a word. Not a _single_ word."

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**AN: **Hmm, a so-so chapter, mostly talking/discussion. Hoping for some action next chapter.

Next Chapter Title: **Chapter Eight: Different Worlds** (Likely to change)


	8. Chapter Eight: Spirit World

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or Yu Yu Hakusho and therefore none of the characters.

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_**Fragmentation**_

_**Chapter Eight- Spirit World**_

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Kagome entwined her fingers together over and over again, never stopping, not able to stop while butterflies plagued her stomach. She'd hardly slept at all that night—well, technically morning since they'd been out all night, first fighting Yusuke and friends, then talking with them while she was in a 'hostage' situation, though it certainly didn't feel like it. Then again, she had so often been in one it was just a normal occurrence now.

She suddenly missed the soft ticking of the clock in the apartment. Sure, it had been annoying the night she had destroyed it, granted, but sometimes it was a comforting sound. It did take away the silence in the room.

"Kagome, you have to stop worrying so much," Sango told her.

The miko spun around on her heels, turning to look at the demon slayer that sat so calmly on their couch. "How can I not worry? How come _you're_ not worried?" Kagome inquired, hands on hips as she regarded her.

Sango smiled a bit. "Because I said I'd leave it up to you." Kagome threw up her hands, giving up. The slayer continued, "you're better at dealing with him than I am."

Shippo, who was sitting on their table, offered Kagome the candy bar in his hand. "You can have this to make you feel better."

She smiled softly at the kitsune. "No. Well…" Chocolate could be comforting at the moment… She shook her head, getting the thoughts out of her head. "No, thanks." Chocolate would only be a minor comfort at this point, no use in having it. "You should eat a real lunch though, Shippo."

He shrugged and, ignoring her last sentence, began unwrapping the candy before Sango snatched it out of his hands. "Hey!" he protested, trying to reach for it, but she held it up higher then he could jump. "Give it back!"

"We're all very happy that you helped Kagome, but you have to eat real food sometimes," Sango told him as he tried to climb up her arm to reach it. The slayer used her other hand to toss the candy to Kagome who put it away.

"No fair, double teaming," Shippo muttered as he climbed down. He sat down on the couch, arms crossed and pouting, what children were best at. The two would have none of it though.

Kirara, who had been resting at Sango's feet, suddenly stood up with a growl. Her ears flattened against her head and she kept her body low to the floor, as though ready to pounce. Moments later, a knock came at the door.

Kagome and Sango exchanged a look. They both know Inuyasha and Miroku didn't take the time to knock, which meant…

Kagome rushed to the door, wanting to get there before they could knock again. She swung open the door and hardly even registered who they were before she pulled the two inside, closing the door swiftly behind them.

"That was weird," Yusuke said, eyeing Kagome, who had her back against the door as though she were holding it shut.

Truthfully, she was expecting Inuyasha to suddenly burst through the hallway and into the room. Nothing happened. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and looked at her two new guests, Yusuke, and one of his friends—Kuwabara, she remembered.

"Well…" she didn't get a chance to finish the sentence she began, however, as her eyes widened. "Kirara, no!"

Both turned to try and get a glimpse of who she was talking to when the small cat demon pounced, turning into her larger form as she jumped. The table and all its contents were flipped over as Kirara leapt onto Kuwabara, bringing him to the ground.

"Woah, nice big kitty," Kuwabara said a bit nervously, though in a soothing way, trying to calm her down. Kirara hissed at him and seeing her large teeth made him feel no better about the situation.

"Kirara!" Sango warned, going to her knees beside the pair. She lay a hand on the demon's back, though she seemed to tense at it. "I told you, we're at a truce. No attacking."

Yusuke began to point his index finger at her, but Kagome knocked his hand away. "Don't shoot her with that energy!" she told him.

He turned to her, giving her a look. "I was only going to give her a jolt!" he protested.

"Maybe, but then she'd come after you and I'd rather not have everything in the entire apartment overturned, thank you very much," she told him, hands on her hips.

He seemed like he wanted to argue, but didn't have a chance to. Things were unfolding fast and badly, getting worse by the moment.

The door suddenly opened and Miroku looked in. His eyes widened at the scene and puzzlement filled him as well, seeing as how Sango was trying to get Kirara off the orange-haired one and Kagome, talking calmly with Yusuke. He shook his head, not knowing what else to do. "I have no idea what's going on in here, but I should warn, you Inuyasha's coming. And he's not in a good mood."

Kagome's eye widened and she was suddenly fidgeting again, wringing her hands together. Yusuke, seeing this, eyed her suspiciously. "What?"

She laughed nervously. "I… kind of haven't told Inuyasha yet."

"What! Do you want this apartment building to be blown up or something? He'll start attacking the minute he sees us!" Yusuke exclaimed, shaking his head.

"Well, I didn't know _you_ were coming, Koenma said Botan! If she'd come I could have just explained on the way, he wouldn't have tried to hurt her!" Kagome replied, going up on her tipitoes to be closer to his height.

He would have responded but was caught off for the second time when the suddenly burst open with tremendous force, the door hitting the wall behind it. Kagome was half-surprised it didn't fly off the hinges. Wait, that was only in the movies. Right. Well, her life felt enough like a movie most of the time for it to be one.

Inuyasha stomped into the room, sword in hand. "Where is he? I swear I'll rip his fucking head off." It took him only seconds to search the room and find his target. He brought his sword back as though he were about to swing, but Kagome suddenly stepped in front of Yusuke.

"Move, Kagome," Inuyasha growled.

"No."

Knowing that Yusuke would try to move her as well—he'd rather fight than run from a challenge—Kagome took a step back so that she was touching Yusuke, her back against his chest. The Spirit Detective froze and she locked her hands behind his back, keeping him behind her.

"Kagome," he said, more sharply this time. He took a few steps forward which she took back, forcing Yusuke to move backward with her.

"Now listen Inuyasha, we're on the same side. I told them to come here," Kagome began.

"You _what_?" he snapped.

Kagome kept moving back, just wanting to keep distance between Yusuke and Inuyasha, when they reached the couch. Yusuke lost balance and feel onto it, making Kagome fall into his lap. Inuyasha towered over them.

"The reason they were attacking was because they thought you were Naraku—or at least, thought you did what Naraku really had done. Now all we have to do is explain things to this Koenma guy and—" she began.

"And you actually _believed_ what they told you?" he scoffed.

"Now wait just a second—" Yusuke began.

"I do. Inuyasha, they were telling the truth," Kagome informed him.

He gave her an annoyed look, obvious not buying what she was saying. "Kagome, get off him," the half-demon ordered, his voice low. His grip tightened on his sword.

She shook her head. "No." She looked into his eyes, pleadingly, giving him the best puppy-dog type eyes she had. "Just listen to what they have to say."

He looked like he wanted to argue more, but eventually gave in. Damn those puppy dog eyes. "Fine." With a loud snap as the hilt hit the scabbard, he sheathed his sword, keeping his suspicious eyes on Yusuke. "But they make one wrong move, and I'll cut 'em in half. And it's your fault if things go wrong."

Kagome's tense body relaxed as she nodded. "Alright," she responded as he walked away with a soft growl.

"What do you mean 'alright'? You're going to let him try and slice us in half?" said the voice behind her.

She smiled slightly at how he put the word 'try' in his sentence. Yusuke obviously didn't see Inuyasha as too much of a threat. "I just said anything to get him to settle down now."

He didn't respond and there was silence between the two for a few moments before he spoke again.

"…You can get off me now," Yusuke told her, amusement in his voice and probably a grin on his face, though she couldn't see it. "I won't attack him. At least, not yet."

Her cheeks burning, she responded, "oh, right, sorry."

Yusuke leaned in closer to her so that his back wasn't against the couch so that she could unlock her hands from where they were clasped. Her cheeks turning an even darker shade of red, she moved off him and onto her own part of the couch.

"Maybe we should get going now," Kagome told him though unable to meet his eyes.

"Yeah, we'll be able to go as soon as that cat gets off of Kuwabara," he responded.

Kagome looked over to see Kirara still on top of Kuwabara, though she had changed into her smaller form at Sango's command since the weight of her body was too much for a human to handle for long. Kirara had made herself quite comfortable on his chest, curling up into a ball, and looking quite pleased with herself at keeping such a large man quiet, even in her small form. Every time the tall man even so much as twitched, she'd growl at him and he'd stiffen, trying not to upset her.

He could have gotten the neko off her earlier, probably even in her larger form with a bit of wrestling (and making sure she wouldn't bite his head off, though he doubted the cat demon would go that far), but he didn't want to invoke her anger. Besides, a fight in the apartment would do major damage. They _might_ have trouble explaining why there was furniture broken, blood all over the place, and maybe a huge hole in a wall, here and there. Yeah, just might have trouble explaining that. For their sake, he avoided battling with the cat, just as long as she was calm enough not to try to take a limb or two.

Sango shook her head while saying, "I just can't convince her to let him go." If she tried to pull the small cat demon off, she would only dig her claws into him, refusing to let go.

"Feh," Inuyasha said, crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall. Serves them right for coming to the apartment. "At least Kirara's got some sense left."

"Oh, Hiei would love to see this," Yusuke said as he made his way over and crouched down beside his friend, grinning almost evilly. "So, Kuwabara, how does it feel to have the creature you love finally turn on you?"

"Shut up, Urameshi," he responded, "besides, this is a demon, it's different."

Shippo snapped his fingers. "I got an idea," he declared before disappearing into Sango's bedroom. Miroku gave Sango a questioning, but she only shrugged, not knowing what the kitsune had planned either.

A few minutes had passed before the kitsune reentered the room, his hands behind his back. He called to Kirara and she was suddenly alert, searching around her until her gaze found Shippo. She let out a soft meow before she jumped off and headed at a trot over to Shippo. The kitsune let out a squeak and began running with the demon on his tail, until he dropped the object he'd hidden behind her back.

"What is that?" Miroku asked, seeing Kirara preoccupied with an object on the floor.

Kagome got up from her seat and walked closer. "Catnip?" she asked.

Sango just shook her head in disbelief as Kuwabara sat up, still eyeing the cat demon cautiously, like she'd pounce again at any second. "Looks like you owe your thanks to Hiei," Sango told him, nodding her head toward Kirara, "he gave that to her last time we fought."

He didn't seem to like the thought, but didn't say anything about it. Yusuke, however, laughed as he stood up straight. "Man, I can't believe you got caught by that cat demon."

Kuwabara followed his lead standing up slowly, then took Yusuke in a headlock. "You try having one hundred plus pound on top of you and then we'll talk."

Yusuke struggled, but Kuwabara held on tight. They ignored the rest of the room then, preoccupied with wrestling amongst themselves.

"Boys," Kagome said, hands on her hips. She got no response. "Boys!"

"Do you think we should throw some water on them, see if they calm down?" Sango asked, her tone dry.

Inuyasha shook his head. "Feh, what idiots." He went to the door that was still opened since he slammed it so. They were just lucky no one came by and saw the miniature fight that went on. "I'll be waiting in the hall," he told them before shutting the door behind him.

Not even that noise disrupted the two in the center of their apartment fighting.

Kagome looked to Miroku. "You're a guy, why don't you get in there and stop them?"

When Miroku began protesting against 'going in there' as Kagome had put it, Sango gave up. "If you don't stop now I'll sic Kirara on both of you."

Kuwabara immediately paused at hearing the demon's name, going into a defensive position, and Yusuke was able to tear away from him. Sango smiled; good to know she could use her cat demon as a threatening tool with him. It might come in handy, or just work as a good joke. Either way, very entertaining.

"Can we go now?" Kagome asked, a bit on the impatient side. "I don't think Koenma is going to like having to wait for us all day."

Yusuke glanced over to her, one hand scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "Heh, sure."

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How could one day feel so long?

Yusuke and Kuwabara had led the way to an old warehouse where 'the fox', Kurama, was waiting. It was there that they had hidden a portal to the Spirit World, which the group went through, some more grudgingly than others.

"Oh, just go in," Kagome had said to Inuyasha when he stubbornly refused to go in the portal. When he didn't responded, she had only shook her head and went through it herself.

He complained, but eventually went when even Shippo jumped through with no problem. All were met with a surprising sight—excluding the Spirit Detectives, of course. The group was suddenly in front of a giant door, which Kurama labeled as the 'Gateway of Decision' and the whole structure was in an old style from centuries past, but it reminded a few of them from the Feudal Era of home. Clouds seemed to be all over the vast deserted area, although Kagome had seen the glimmer of souls all around. Well, it was Spirit World, after all.

Kagome and the others were still on the defensive (just in case) and the long, dark corridor wasn't much to ease the mood. Of course, when they reached the next portion, seeing hundreds and hundreds of ogres running around doing _paperwork_ only confused them more. "What the hell" were Inuyasha's exact words and the others couldn't agree more. It was then that they were led into an office, Koenma's to be exact. He looked the same as Kagome had seen him in the screen, though Yusuke muttered something about him changing to impress girls.

A long conversation ensued, mostly between Kagome and Koenma, with a few comments from Miroku and Kurama trying to straighten out some misleading conclusions each team had made about the other. Sango honestly couldn't recount most of it since she tuned out after only a few comments were made. Let them do the talking; just give Sango a sword, point it in the direction of Naraku and his allies and she was good. This whole negotiating thing, Kagome pleading their innocence, explaining the Naraku incident and such, that wasn't her.

She was slouched a bit in the chair that was placed in front of Koenma's desk, thinking about how she never realized before that she could sleep with her eyes open, when Sango finally began listening again when the discussion caught her interest.

"…more demons appearing in Human World in the past few months, it's been hard to keep track of them all. That's why we mistook Inuyasha for this 'Naraku'. We only knew that he was a half-demon new to this area, and both fit the description," Koenma clarified.

"More demons?" Sango repeated in a murmur, sitting up straighter in her seat while avoiding coming in contact with Miroku, who sat on one of the arms of the chair. There had only been two chairs in the room, both the girls occupying them.

"Naraku's doing," Inuyasha said with distaste while Kagome nodded in agreement.

With a thoughtful look, Miroku leaned back and put an arm around the back of chair to steady him in the unbalanced position. Sango shifted, feeling a bit uncomfortable, but said nothing and kept her face from showing anything, except for the bit of color that rushed to her face that she couldn't stop.

Voicing part of his thoughts, Miroku added, "or the jewel's. By now all the different pieces must have been found."

"The pieces must have been carried to all different places, in the Makai as well. Demons must be searching for them everyone, including here obviously," Kurama deduced.

Kagome chewed her bottom lip as she looked intently at her hands, sitting neatly in her lap, finger laced together. She knew this was all her fault. She had broken the jewel. Well, she had broken it the first time too, so it was all her fault really. Everything that happened concerning Naraku, everything since she fell into the well when she was fifteen, it was all because of her. Every person that was put in danger… that died… her. All her.

Seeing Kagome's obvious discomfort and not understanding it, Yusuke changed the subject of discussion. He pushed off the wall he had been leaning against and moved closer to Koenma's desk and Kagome.

"So now we know we're all on the same side," he commented, his arms crossed, "so what?"

"Well…" Koenma began after a silence, "if Naraku is as tough as you make him out to be, perhaps it would be beneficial on both our parts to work together."

No one responded initially; Inuyasha still eyed Yusuke with dislike, glaring at the Spirit Detective with such malice that Yusuke was more than willing to return to the half demon. A few glanced at each other with neutral gazes and Shippo just looked around at them with a child's curiosity. Kagome had raised her gaze to exchange a look with Sango, which was the equivalent to both of them shrugging.

Since no one else was willing to answer, Kagome began. "I guess… I guess I'd be in for some sort of partnership."

Inuyasha growled and turned a disbelieving gaze on Kagome. "What? Who said you could decide for us?"

She turned in her seat to be able to face him, kneeling on the cushion. "I didn't. I decided for myself. Or am I not allowed to make my own decisions anymore?"

"Not when they're stupid decisions," Inuyasha responded, holding her gaze with his piercing eyes. "If you think that I'll—"

"I'll go along with it," Sango told Koenma, interrupting Inuyasha, "at least for awhile." _As long as they don't try to kill us, I'm game._ She looked from under her lashes at Hiei, standing off to the side, as well as at Kurama. _Hiei did get Kagura to leave and Kurama healed me, not to mention got the poison out. I guess that means I can trust them, to a point._

"Well, if Kagome's for it, I am too!" the little kitsune exclaimed from her lap.

"Sell out," Inuyasha muttered.

Shippo jumped from Kagome to Inuyasha, landing gracefully on his shoulder, while still jumping around to avoid Inuyasha's clawed hands that tried to snatch him. "Aw, lighten up, dog-ears," Shippo said as he gave the hanyou's ears a tug. "They won't bite," he added with a laugh.

If he'd been an actual dog, his lips would have curled back and there would have been possible foaming at the mouth. As it was, Inuyasha barred his teeth, his hands finally closing around the kitsune. He yelped and squirmed, but Inuyasha tossed him back to Kagome before he did something Kagome would make him regret. He knew she was probably ready with the horrible word 'sit' on the tip of her tongue…

The miko put a small hand on his forearm, looking at him pleadingly. If she could get him to agree, then things would be alright. Though in the end, she guessed it didn't matter anymore. As long as they knew Inuyasha wasn't a human-killing hanyou, they wouldn't go after him. That wouldn't stop her from helping them out, however.

"Feh," Inuyasha said as he glanced away, arms folded across his chest while Kagome smiled inwardly. That was his way of giving in; he'd go along with it… at least for now, just as Sango had said.

"Wait, who ever said we'd agree to this?" Yusuke stated crossly.

"Oh, don't be stubborn," Kagome said, turning to face him. "You know it'll be beneficial for all of us."

"And how do you know what I'm thinking?" he asked in a gruff manner.

She smiled, her eyes sparkling. "Simple minded people are always so easy to read." With an exclamation of 'hey', he took a few steps forward which made her quickly amend, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding." Still, her eyes sparkled at being able to get him so easily riled up.

After that, everyone more or less reluctantly agreed to the proposition of working together. Besides, everything had been explained about Naraku, the jewel, and the past as well as what Yusuke and his teammates did. They knew neither were the bad guys now, at least in theory, if they believed they could trust the others enough to speak the truth.

"I guess that settles it. For the moment, consider yourself teammates until Naraku is found," Koenma announced, "though I suppose I should get you use to working with each other." He looked thoughtful for a moment before declaring, "I'll send you out in groups on two tonight for a routine demon patrol."

Already he was being given orders and by someone who wanted to have him killed or captured a few days, no, hours ago. "Why do I think I'm not going to like this…" Inuyasha muttered.

Kagome gave him a jab in the ribs with her elbow, effectively making Inuyasha stop talking, though he gave her a withering look.

"Kagome since you seem to be able to handle him, why don't you go with Yusuke," Koenma told her and she nodded in turn, agreeing. Inuyasha and Yusuke would probably tear each other apart and the other girl didn't look like she had enough patience to deal with the young Spirit Detective. He wasn't so sure about Miroku, but Kagome was the safest bet.

"'Handle him'?" Yusuke repeated. "What am I, five?"

"Glad to see you're admitting it." Surprisingly the retort didn't come from Inuyasha, but Kuwabara. He grinned as he said it.

"I'm going with Kagome too!" Shippo interrupted just as Yusuke was about to come back with a witty reply.

"What about you, Sango? Do you have a preference?" the prince asked her.

Sango bit the inside of her cheek as she thought. She couldn't go with Kuwabara because, although he seemed nice and kind enough to her, wherever Sango went, Kirara would go and for some reason, the neko youkai had a dislike for their new orange haired ally. That left just Kurama and Hiei and although Kurama had saved her life, she couldn't help but feel uncomfortable when near him. He _had_ stripped her to clean her wounds but still, it was too embarrassing. Though she wasn't sure getting stuck with the demon was any better, but he did seem interesting since he had an odd character that she hadn't been able to figure out yet.

"Hiei," she answered to Koenma's surprise. She glanced at the demon and he said "fine" in a gruff acceptance. She supposed the only reason he accepted was because getting stuck with her was better than either the hanyou or the monk.

It was then decided that Inuyasha would go with Kurama, since he held no love for the tall human (and declared that Kurama would be the only one he'd be able to stand, not to mention he'd be able to keep up with him better), which left Miroku with Kuwabara.

Kagome bit her lip, wondering if she could ask Koenma for a favor. It would really help her out for demon fighting… so he'd agree, right? At least, that's what she thought before the words were tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them.

"Um… I was just wondering… if you have a bow I could use?" she asked, eyes hopefully. When he didn't respond right away, she quickly went on, "I mean, I know how to use one but the last one was broken during a battle and good bows—not to mention arrows—are very hard to find and sorta hard to explain when you're asking if a shop has one in stock, which most don't. And then the ones that do are really cheapy and can't handle a sacred arrow…" She was rambling, wasn't she? And she was saying too much, which will get her in trouble with Inuyasha. Bad Kagome, bad.

She quickly stopped her blabbering and waited for an answer. Koenma had another thoughtful look on his face before he called Botan in, who came in awfully quick, making Kagome suspect she'd been listening at the door the entire time. He told the ferry girl to bring Kagome to their weapon room.

As Kagome got up, looking so happy and relieved that she might have hugged Koenma (and she probably would have if she had known if it was alright or not—he was royalty after all), Yusuke spoke. "Wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. We have a weapon room? A whole _room_? How come I didn't know we had a weapon room?"

Kagome patted Yusuke on the shoulder in a consoling way as she passed him. "Yusuke, I've only known you for a few days and even _I_ can see why they wouldn't tell." Images of Yusuke taking one weapon and the rest somehow falling over, of him hurting himself, and others came to mind, making her smile.

She followed Botan out, with Yusuke hot on her heels, wanting to see this room no one would tell him about. Once she had left, conversation subsided into a few conversation within themselves. Needing to stretch her legs, Sango shrugged off her jacket and got up from the chair, walking to one side of the room, away from the rest.

Eyes followed her across the room and she wrapped her arms around her as she thought. Only when she felt a light tap on her shoulder did she turn, coming face to face with Miroku. She looked at him questioningly to which he gently took one of her arms, looking down at the angry red slashes across it, still healing from her battle, though the healing salve Kurama had put on them had helped greatly.

"Are you sure we can trust them?" he asked her, examining the wounds. With his other hand he lightly traced one of the cuts to show her what he meant if she hadn't made the connection already.

Shaking her head, Sango took her arm back slowly, rather than yank it from him. "They didn't do this to me. They actually helped me heal these wounds and others. An old friend did this to me." He cocked an eyebrow, but she responded, "later."

**

* * *

**Kagome's eyes lit up. It was just like a kid in a candy store, a child and his first trip to the carnival, a boy and his first bike, a fighter seeing their first demon that they're able to go after... except maybe not the last one. Man, she had been doing this too long. 

But there were just so many to choose from…

There, right in front of her, was a line full of bows, each unique in their own way. She touched the one closest to her, her body tingling with excitement, especially her fingertips. Picking it up, she held it as though she would fire (despite the fact she had no arrow), then shook her head and put it down, going to the next in line.

Some were too big, others' strings weren't flexible enough, and some just _felt_ wrong in her hands. She finally touched a bow near the middle of the row, engraving carved into it, and felt a small pulse when she touched it. Intrigued, she picked it up. It was a good size for her, just the right size, in fact. She tested the string and smiled. Perfect.

"Here," she heard Botan say.

Kagome turned to look at the deity and saw her holding something in her hands, offering it to the miko. It was a small velvet pouch as big as Kagome's palm. She took the lavender bag from her, feeling the soft, fuzzy texture of it.

"Koenma thought you might need it. Walking around the city with a bunch of arrows and a bow can be kind of odd. You can store your bow and arrows in it," Botan explained.

Kagome frowned. "But it's so small, it's not exactly going to fit…" she began.

In response, she put her hands on her hips, giving her a look she'd seen on her mother's face from time to time. "Oh pooh, you work with demons all day but you can't see a little bit of enchantment at work?"

To demonstrate, she took the pouch and bow from Kagome and, after opening the small pouch, just touched the end of the bow to the opening. When she continued to push the bow down, it slid into the bag with no problem. Before Kagome knew it, the bow had disappeared, supposedly into the bag, and Botan pulled the two velvet ropes at the top of the pouch away from each other, making the that the pouch closed.

"Ta-da!" Botan said with a smile. "And if you want to get something out only call for it and reach your hand inside and that'll be the first thing you pull out. There's already numerous amounts of arrows in there already. But a bow and arrows and the only thing that can fit inside." She shrugged. "That's just how it was made centuries ago. Some knight made and used it."

When she handed it back to Kagome, the miko tied the pouch so that it would stay fastened at her side. "Bow," she said and dropped hand inside. It easily came out with the bow, making Kagome smile and a slight disbelieving laugh escape her. "Cool. Um, arrow," she called, then took one out.

As she strung the arrow, Yusuke reappeared, having done a full assessment of the large weapon room. "There are mostly only normal weapons here," he said as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, feeling disappointed. He had been so looking forward to some destructive weapons too.

"Of course! All the dangerous weapons we keep tightly locked up," she told him as though it were an obvious answer.

He raised an eyebrow. "Tightly? I remember Hiei and Kurama easily getting through security to steal an item or two a couple years ago," he said dryly, which caused Botan to huff.

Confused, Kagome asked, "Um, if Hiei and Kurama are on your side, why were they stealing from you?" She let the arrow slack and held the weapon normally as she waited for a response.

"They weren't always on our side—but that's a long story for another time," the Spirit Detective explained. Finally he looked to Kagome and upon seeing the bow and arrow, asked, "do you even know how to use those?"

Oh, just because she's a girl she's not allowed to know how to use a weapon? Well, she'd give _him_ an answer. In only a few second, she had brought up her weapon and aimed it near Yusuke. She closed one eye instinctively, then scolding herself, opened both and shot. She smiled smugly as it landed a few inches from his head.

"I'm a _pretty_ good shot," she told him. She spent the last three plus years using a bow, her aiming was almost flawless now. Practice makes (nearly) perfect.

Now, considering Yusuke could move faster than she could probably even see (spending years with Hiei did pay off) he could have avoided the arrow had her aim been off and he was in danger of getting shot. Still, he let her have the satisfaction she was waiting for. Well, it was a good shot anyway, especially since he hadn't expecting her to be so good.

It was the second time he'd underestimated her, the first being when she blocked his spirit gun with her barrier. Granted, he hadn't used full power because he had only needed enough to finish off the hanyou (though now he was being to think he had underestimated the half-demon's power—or mainly that sword of his, which he had yet to see the full power of), but still for her to have blocked it? The girl was full of surprises.

Where was he? Ah yes, giving the girl the response she expected.

"You could have hit me," he said incredulously.

She shook her head. "I wouldn't have—well, if I had one of eyes closed I might have. I'm not as accurate then." She offered him a smile before putting the bow away in the pouch. Nifty trick.

Figuring she should go meet up with the others before Inuyasha went out searching for her, she left the room then, Botan coming along to show the way back. Yusuke heard Botan say to the girl, "maybe we'd be better off if you _had_ hit him. Might do his ego some good," to which she laughed softly.

"I heard that," he called after them, causing them to speed faster away while laughing as softly as they could manage.

Shaking his head, he looked at the arrow that impaled the wall next to him. He gave a light tug. It didn't budge. Using a bit more energy, he yanked the arrow from its prison, examining it with a small smug look.

This partnership might work out be better than he thought.

**

* * *

**The group trickled out of the Koenma's office slowly, going to start their demon patrolling, until only the former youkai thief remained, taking the seat the girl, Kagome, had occupied before. 

Koenma put his elbows up on his desk, letting his face rest in his hands as he rubbed his temples, a headache forming. In a poof of smoke, the prince had changed back to his more natural form, not having enough energy to maintain his teen form.

"Too much talking for one day," the prince complained. With his new form came his more childlike behavior.

"Yes," Kurama agreed absentmindedly, his face pensive. "I wonder… can we trust them?"

Koenma stood up on his chair so that he was on eye level with the fox. "Do we have any other choice? Mostly everything they said checks out, the jewel vanishing, both hanyou, even the two humans disappearance from their time." He sighed, falling back into his chair. "What do you think?"

"…the girl, Kagome… she's pure," he began slowly, choosing his words carefully, "a priestess at that. If none of the others, you can still trust her decisions. I don't believe it is possible for her to be on the side of evil."

Koenma nodded, grabbing a stack of papers that were in need of stamping. "You'll have a tough job, keeping up with the hanyou and keeping him calm."

"He's no match for Hiei in speed, I'll be able to follow. And I've dealt with Yusuke all these years, haven't I?" Kurama let a small smile come to his lips.

Koenma laughed. "I guess so." He began stamping furiously; he was already behind. Pausing for a second, he muttered, "to teamwork," as though making a toast before he stamped yet another paper.

**

* * *

**She followed the moving blur out of the city and through the park, sometimes she was even able to see his outline, then he'd speed up again. It was as though he only stood for a moment to make sure she was still following. 

"Alright, that's it!" Sango called out. "would you slow down?"

"Just because you're too slow to keep up, doesn't mean I should move any less swiftly."

She heard his reply come from behind her and she spun around, her eyes searching for him. She found him on a tree branch, naturally standing on it.

She almost said with annoyance, "I didn't ask to be stuck with you," but held her tongue. It _was_ her fault that she had to stay with the demon, but only because it was better than an awkward silence between her and the fox, and she wouldn't get anywhere with Kirara hissing at Kuwabara all day.

"How about for a second you remember that I'm _human_ and can't keep up with you." _As much as that fact annoys me… _Except for maybe Kouga, she'd always been able to give a demon a good, easy chase.

"It's not my fault you were born into a lousy race." Hiei smirked. He could almost feel her anger rising as she glared at him.

"No, but it is your fault that I'm stuck running after a aggravating, short little demon—which is you by the way, if you didn't get the reference!"

He jumped to the ground, moving toward her. "Short and little are the same thing, idiot."

Not having another comeback, she muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'asshole', before walking away from him, only to spin back around a moment later. She held up a hand that slowly curled into a fist, trying to hold her frustration in and having a hard time doing it. Hiei watched in silent amusement.

Meanwhile, Kirara weaved around Hiei's feet, brushing against his legs as a low rumble came from her, very unlike how she responded to Kuwabara. Hiei moved back, away from the neko, but she only followed, making the fire demon uncomfortable.

Sango felt her annoyance melting away as she watched the display, as well as a plot forming. (An evil plot, of course). "Well isn't that cute," Sango said with a mischievous smile. She bent down to peer more closely at the small youkai. Oh, she was smitten.

"What is?" Hiei asked, suspicion in his voice. He narrowed his eyes as he looked down at the demon slayer, whose eyes were dancing with merriment, all her previous anger suddenly gone.

"I think Kirara has a crush on you," the slayer told him, her eyes now sparkling with laughter she didn't dare let bubble out. Oh, what he might do to her if he laughed in his face. Still, Hiei looked at a loss and Sango realized it was her choice of words. 'Crush' to him didn't have the same meaning.

She tried again. "Hear that rumbling? She's purring."

Hiei understood then and his uneasiness grew. How to deal with a youkai fawning for his attention? Give him a demon to fight any day; he never had to deal with _this_ particular problem before.

Reaching over, Sango picked up Kirara and though she struggled for a moment, she came along. Just as Sango had predicted, Kirara jumped from her arms onto Hiei's shoulders. His whole body seemed to tense as she rubbed against the back of his neck and then curled around it, letting her two tails brush against his cheek. There was no mistaking it now since he could hear her purring in his ear.

Not able to hold it, she let a small laugh escape, before she covered her mouth when he gave her a death glare. Taking away her hand, she said slyly, "you're both fire demon, I guess it's only natural."

He tried to take her off, but she dug her nails deep into his skin, refusing. "Get this youkai off me before I tear her off or rip her in half," he commanded. "Whichever will get her off me."

Sango frowned. "Now that's not very nice." She was calling his bluff, at least, what she thought was a bluff. She hoped he wouldn't actually hurt Kirara… but she couldn't be sure.

He didn't speak, trying to wear down her resolve with a glare. He gave in, however, when the cat demon rubbed her face against his cheek. "Get her off me and I'll slow down."

Her frown turned into a bright smile. "Deal."

**

* * *

**"Shippo, come back here!" Kagome called after the kitsune, turning to follow him to the candy shop he had disappeared into. 

Yusuke caught her arm before she could. "Let the kid go, you can't always follow him. He may have used illusion so that he looks like a normal boy, but he can use his sense of smell to follow."

She pursed her lips, but stayed quiet. True, Shippo could follow them if they didn't go too far; his sense of smell only worked so well in the crowded city with so many different scents to follow. It was hard for even Inuyasha to follow just one sometimes.

They turned into an alley, deciding to wait for the little kitsune there. Kagome leaned against the wall and Yusuke moved next to her, doing the same. She glanced away from Yusuke as her mind tried to think of a conversation to start so that they could be rid of the uncomfortable silence that hung around them.

Now that it was just the two of them alone, things were awkward. Before, when they had only just met, they had done some shameless teasing and a bit of flirting, but now? That'd be too weird. They were 'working' together now. Things with Inuyasha had been hard enough sometimes, did she really want to do that again?

"How long have you been demon fighting?" Kagome asked. See, that was a safe topic of discussion.

He seemed spaced out when she asked it, then turned bleary eyes on Kagome. He snapped out of it, replying, "…almost four years now, I guess. Yeah that's about right since I died—the first time—more than three years ago."

Her eyes widened before she shook her head. "I forgot about that, Koenma mentioned it before, but he said it like it was so casual." She paused. "But I guess, living in Spirit World, it would be. What was it like?"

Yusuke shrugged. "Like being alive minus the being able to touch things. Though I did get to possess Kuwabara. Oh, and there was floating. The floating was cool."

Kagome laughed. "Must have been fun." When he raised an eyebrow, she quickly amended, "the floating, not the being dead part."

"I guess. Then when I got my body back I started the whole demon fighting thing."

The miko nodded. "Yeah, I saw only some of what you can do when you fighting Inuyasha. That blast of power that shoots out of your finger. Pretty cool," she told him with a smile.

Neither talked again for awhile, but this time it wasn't strained, so Kagome didn't mind it. She was surprised, however, when Yusuke continued their conversation.

He scoffed as he looked down, kicking a small piece of rubble so it hit the wall across from him. "I coulda beat Inuyasha easily."

"Oh, wow," Kagome said with a smile, shaking her head. She glanced at him and laid a hand on top of his head.

"What?" he asked, trying to look up to see her head, but obviously, he could not.

Her smile turned into a grin. "Just seeing how inflated your head—or rather, your ego—is." She moved her hand so that it was just above his ear and put the other on the other side. "Let's see how inflated it gets over time." She then proceeded to mutter as she took her 'measurements', until Yusuke took her hold of her wrists and moved her hands away.

"My head is _not_ inflated."

Taking her hands back, she pat him on the head, like she would a dog. "Aw, just keep telling yourself that," she informed him consolingly.

He let out a noise that could be described as a growl as he took hold of her hand. "I'm not Inuyasha, I'm not your dog."

She let the Inuyasha comment pass and addressed just the second part. "Could've fooled me," she teased.

When she laughed once again, he grabbed her chin, tilting her head upward and forcing her to meet his eyes. The smile on her face slowly melted away when she saw the intense look in his eyes, so different from his normal look, though the arrogance was still there.

She could suddenly feel she heart beating fast in her chest, as her eyes half closed, only waiting for him. He moved his face closer, his lips hovering over hers teasingly, making an uneasiness grow within as she wondered if he was playing with her or not.

Then he let go of the grip he had on her chin, sliding his hand down so that it so that it cupped the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and…

"Kagome!" she heard the kitsune call in a squeal only a child can manage.

Her eyes shot open and she jerked backward, though Yusuke still had her in his grasps. He left his eyes closed for a moment and shook his head just the slightly bit before he opened them. The intense, intimate look was completely gone, the usual boyish charm in its place, not to mention the same egotistical smile.

He let go and Kagome moved away from him just in time as Shippo bound into the alley. He hopped effortlessly into her arms, though he frowned at her. "You left me!" he cried, offended.

She pressed a finger to his nose. "You're the one that ran off," she countered.

They began walking then as Kagome and Shippo rambled on, though Kagome was hardly paying attention to her responses. Yusuke kept quiet, which irked the kitsune, since he definitely did not seem like the quiet type. The only thing that interrupted them was a ringing that abruptly came from something in Yusuke's pocket.

He dug his hand through it, before coming back with a communicator. Flipping it open, he saw Botan on the other side. "What's up, Botan?"

She smiled brightly. "Got an actual case for you, want to hear about it?"

**

* * *

**

Next Chapter: **Chapter Nine- Haunted Misfortune ****(part one)**

Actually, considering the size of these chapters, it might only be one chapter. Otherwise, it'll be two parts.


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